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Government working to ready infrastructure needed for Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine

"It does need to be kept in a very, very cold environment," the Prime Minister said.

Jacinda Ardern says the infrastructure needed to hold a Covid-19 vaccine in a cool environment has been factored into the amount of funding already allocated. 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today that when the Government made an agreement to purchase Pfizer vaccines, "We were very well aware of the coolstore requirements of that vaccine. It won't be suitable for every country because it does need to be kept in a very, very cold environment. 

"We factored that into out purchasing. We are already working to purchase the infrastructure required to make sure we can distribute it safely, keep that cold chain in tact."

Woods said there was $66 million allocated for the equipment and infrastructure that would be required to roll out the vaccine. 

There are high hopes for the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, which the pharmaceutical giant announced yesterday is 90 per cent effective. However, issues include that it needs to be stored at extremely low temperatures, making distribution tricky.

All eyes were on pharmaceutical giant Pfizer yesterday as the 90 per cent effective vaccine was announced.

Yesterday, Minister for Research, Science and Innovation Megan Woods said  1.5 million doses should be ready for Kiwis in early 2021 , if all goes to plan. However, as it is a two-dose vaccine, that means 750,000 people would have access.

On how the storage requirement would impact the Pacific, Ardern said New Zealand was "working alongside our Pacific neighbours". 

New Zealand will be among the first countries in line if the drug, which was tested on over 40,000 volunteers, gets final approval.

"We are supporting our Pacific neighbours with vaccination purchase arrangements. There are some vaccines that will make that distribution in those environments a bit more tricky."

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