Vaccine: Pfizer Doses Available

The consignment of 152,000 doses of Pfizer BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 finally arrived in Yaounde last Sunday, December 5, 2021. The doses are presently at the ultra cold storage room of the Expanded Immunisation Programme (EIP) in Yaounde. Officials at the EPI say Pfizer is the fourth vaccine offered to Cameroon thanks to the COVAX facility. The facility brings together governments, global health organizations, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, etc with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to Covid-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines, especially in developing countries.

The Deputy Secretary of EPI, Dr Andreas Ateke-Njoh, says at EPI the vaccines are stored between -80 and -60 degrees Celsius and the cold room have the capacity to accommodate the 152,000 doses. “That is four ultra-cold freezers" the Deputy Secretary noted. The vaccines, he further explained, will be dispatched to the different regions and vaccination centres after pre- registration of beneficiaries. Once removed from the EPI cold room temperature to the routine +2 to +8 degrees Celsius that vaccines are stored at regional and district levels, Dr Andreas Njoh underlined that the vaccines can be used for just 31days. That is why he explained that it is important to do pre-registration so that just what is needed is sent to the various vaccination centres. 

According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  in the United States, based on evidence from clinical trials in people ages 16 years and older, the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) vaccine was 95 per cent effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed infection with the virus that causes Covid-19 in people who received two doses and had no evidence of being p...