Washington (AFP)

Pharmacies in the United States will be able to begin distributing vaccines to the eligible population from February 11 in order to accelerate the vaccination campaign in the country, the Biden administration announced on Tuesday.

“This will provide more places for people to be vaccinated in their neighborhood. And it's an important part of equitable vaccine distribution,” White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said, in front of the press.

The government will provide one million doses to pharmacies in the first week, in addition to the 10.5 million doses supplied to states and other territories starting this week.

Dose allocations to states have increased 22% since January 20, the date the Biden administration took office, according to a statement.

More than 32.2 million doses have been injected so far, and just under 6 million people have received the necessary two doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, according to the latest data from health authorities.

After initial traffic jams, states are increasing the rate of injections, while the federal government is working with vaccine manufacturers to increase supplies.

The Biden administration is aiming to inject 150 million doses before the end of its first 100 days in office on April 20.

- Mutations -

A third vaccine could soon be approved by health authorities, after the announcement last week of the results of the American company Johnson & Johnson, which has conducted trials on several continents and demonstrated that its vaccine was effective, particularly against the forms serious cases of Covid-19.

Although less protective than the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, the vaccine from "J&J" has the advantage of being in a single dose, as well as that of being able to be stored at temperatures of a refrigerator, rather than a freezer. very powerful.

Scientists warn the world is now in a race between vaccines and the coronavirus.

Allowing the virus to replicate freely increases the chances of it mutating leading to a potential reduction in the protection offered by vaccines, or greater contagiousness or lethality.

Current vaccines and synthetic antibody treatments have already shown to be less effective against the variant initially identified in South Africa.

This variant also poses the significant risk of reinfection for people who have previously had the more common strain of coronavirus, studies show.

Even more so if their case was not severe and it had not triggered a strong immune response.

© 2021 AFP