Thursday, July 29 2021 13:12

ArmInfo. Armenia will allocate 3 billion 459 million drams for the purchase of the Chinese Sinopharm and the American-German Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines against the  coronavirus.

With these funds, Armenia will also purchase 500 thousand doses of  the coronavirus vaccine, as a result of which the share of vaccinated  citizens in the total number will increase by 10% (500 thousand doses  per 250 thousand people, in 2 doses).

Acting Head of the Ministry of Health Anahit Avanesyan said that as  of July 29, 163 people were vaccinated against coronavirus in  Armenia. As of today, Russian Sputnik V, British-Swedish AstraZeneca  and Chinese CoronaVac are available in Armenia without any  restrictions.

To note,  the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech was the first drug  officially approved by the World Health Organization. Research by WHO  has shown that the vaccine meets the criteria for safety and  efficacy.  Already in May of this year, the WHO has added the Chinese  Sinopharm vaccine for COVID-19 to the list of drugs for use in  emergency situations, allowing it to be used to vaccinate people aged  18 and older on a schedule of two doses, three to four weeks apart.  It was noted that the effectiveness of this Chinese vaccine against  both mild and severe forms of the disease is 79 percent for all age  groups combined. The WHO noted that few people over the age of 60  participated in clinical trials. However, the Organization does not  recommend setting an upper age limit for this vaccine.