Armenia to buy Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines
YEREVAN, June 24. /ARKA/. By autumn Armenia’s Health Ministry will purchase new Covid-19 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, the acting Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan said today at a government meeting.
According to her, some 70 thousand vaccinations have been administered across the country so far. She expressed hope that the vaccination pace will grow after last weekend parliamentary elections.
She noted that the number of daily confirmed cases and deaths have dropped dramatically, but in order to preserve this pace, mass vaccination is needed.
“We expects vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and Novavax to be delivered to Armenia in autumn (the American company Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine is produced under the name Janssen COVID-19) (Novavax -NVX-CoV2373 0 is a COVID-19 vaccine based on protein subunits developed by Novavax in January 2020), ”Avanesyan said.
She urged citizens to get vaccinated before the holiday season and the start of the school year, adding that after 70,000 vaccinations there have been no cases of concern.
“Vaccinations is important not only in terms of health care, but also in terms of economic development. In addition, according to our forecasts, there will be a certain increase in the number of new cases because of the election campaigning and, therefore, it is necessary to get vaccinated in order to prevent the growth of infection,” Avanesyan said.
Mass vaccination against COVID-19 started on April 13. Armenian health authorities are using three types of vaccines: Sputnik-V (Russia), AstraZeneca (Britain) and CoronaVac / Sinovac (China).
Sputnik-V vaccines are for chronic patients over 18 years old, medical workers between 18 and 54 years old, residents and employees of social assistance centers.
Vaccinations with the other two vaccines are available for all citizens of Armenia and foreigners over 18 years of age on a voluntary basis.
Armenia wants to vaccinate about 700 thousand residents by the end of the year. -0-
