First batch of Pfizer vaccine doses due to arrive at the end of February

On January 31, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia held a phone conversation with the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom; following the phone call, PM Gakharia announced that the first batch of Pfizer vaccine are to be expected in late February this year. Gakharia thanked Tedros Adhanom for supporting Georgia’s National Plan for Vaccination and added that the first batch of vaccines will be administered to healthcare workers.

Mr. Adhanom tweeted on his personal page that the first doses of the vaccine will first be available to workers on the frontline, who are currently both “under-protected” and “over-exposed”.

Earlier this month, the Deputy Head of National Centre for Disease Control Paata Imnadze announced that the vaccination for the non-risk groups in Georgia will start in summer or early autumn. First ones to receive the vaccine will be the country’s health workers, senior citizens, residents of care homes and high-risk individuals with chronic diseases.

To this day, Georgia has already ordered vaccines sufficient for 700,000 individuals (or a total of 1,400,000 doses, as one individual will need to be vaccinated twice) via the Covax platform. The total cost for the ordered vaccines will amount to $17 million; the cost has been partially paid out.

According to the Georgian health officials, Georgia will only be able to store 200,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines, due to the lack of refrigerator facilities that can store the vaccine at the required temperature- that of -70 degrees Celsius. Chairman of the Parliamentary Health Committee, Dmitri Khundadze announced that the country can only store 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Health officials in Georgia welcome the arrival of Pfizer vaccines. Head of the Infectious Diseases and AIDS Centre Tengiz Tsertsvadze claimed that the aspired vaccines will mark the “beginning of an end” of the COVID-19 pandemic. He congratulated Georgia for being among the first few developing countries to receive the first doses of the highest quality vaccine shortly.

Tsertsvadze also noted that the Pfizer vaccine can refuse the cases of COVID-19 in the most effective way, and it will also be able to bring about the gradual and safest way of removing all the healthcare-related restrictions and regulations currently in place.