Romania will receive more than 8.3 million anti Covid vaccines in April and May enabling it to inoculate enough people to lift pandemic restrictions, a health ministry official said Tuesday.
Vaccine
The vaccines will include Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and the first batches of Johnson &Johnson, deputy health minister Andrei Baciu said on Tuesday.
Romania received shipments of about 2.21 million anti-Covid vaccine doses in March, he said.
This week, Romania will take delivery of 134,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine and about 110,000 AstraZeneca jabs.
Romania received 511,000 Pfizer vaccines on Monday and is expecting a total of 2.046 million by the end of the month, Mr. Baciu said.
The first Johnson & Johnson vaccines will arrive in the third week of April, he said, with an initial batch of 60,000 followed by another 103,000 by the end of the month.
European Medicines Agency
The European Medicines Agency approved the U.S. vaccine in March. It is the fourth to be granted approval for use in the bloc.
It joins the German-American BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine and the US-made Moderna vaccine.
“So April and May, are two important months, as the prime minister Florin Citu said,” the deputy minister added.
“We will have more than 8.3 million vaccine doses (in April and May) which will result in more than 5 million people being inoculated by the end of May, about 35% of the adult population.”
Pandemic restrictions
This will lead to pandemic restrictions being lifted.
Romania has received 5.12 million vaccine doses so far of which 3.36 million have been administered, about two-thirds of vaccines.
Some 2.156 million people in Romania have received at least one jab and 1.258 million have received both shots.
He said Romania was currently in fourth place in Europe for vaccinating the population against Covid-19 and in 15th place globally.
„All the vaccine rollout efforts place us fourth in Europe,” he said.
