Romania requests suspension of delivery of COVID-19 vaccine doses in June

Romania has requested the suspension of the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine doses in June, and it will receive 2,635,680 out of a total of 7,103,160 scheduled for the month, senior official with the Romanian Health Ministry Andrei Baciu announced on Tuesday.

"A procedure is already underway to align the legal framework, the legal rules that allow the resale of doses by the Ministry of Health, but for the period immediately ahead, given the fact that there is a surplus of doses and precisely to have an as effective as possible management of stockpiles a suspension was considered and a request was submitted for the delivery of some doses," he explained at a news conference.

According to Baciu, Romania should have received this June 4,366,444 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer BioNTech, but, as a result of the request to keep them on stand-by for a time, only 1,928,162 will be delivered.

As many as 835,200 doses were to be received from Moderna and the delivery of some batches has been suspended, so that only 128,400 will be delivered. At the same time, only 167,200 doses of the Astra Zenecca vaccine will be received in June.

"The weekly doses and batches of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are not suspended; they will be carried out as announced. We received 144,000 in the first week, in the second week we received 61,800, 48,800 come this week, the following week 41,400 and in the last week 115,920, adding up to a total of 411,920 of the Johnson & Johnson doses," said Baciu.

He added that a total of 7,103,160 doses of vaccine had to be delivered this month, but in order to have an efficient management of the existing stockpiles only 2,635,680 will be actually delivered.

To date, Romania has received almost 15 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.