Poland to receive about 15 mln vaccine doses in Q2 - official

Vaccine producers are committed to supplying Poland with about 15 million doses in the second quarter of the year, a government official announced on Wednesday.

Michał Dworczyk, the government commissioner for the vaccination programme, also said that the total includes 2.5 million single-dose Johnson&Johnson vaccines.

In recent weeks Poland’s national vaccination programme has been interrupted by delays in vaccine supplies.

“We have received declarations from vaccine producers that lead us to expect that in April, May and June, so in the second quarter of the year, we will receive a total of about 15 million vaccine doses, of which 2.5 million will be vaccines from the Johnson&Johnson company, so single-dose vaccines," Dworczyk told a press conference.

He added that "if producers honour their declarations, it will cause a significant acceleration in the vaccination programme in Poland."

Vaccination points will receive detailed information by the end of the week, he said, enabling them to increase capacity, and that local authorities would also join in the effort to increase the vaccination rate.

Dworczyk went on to report that Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, had told the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, that 335,000 extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine would arrive in Poland in the last week of March.

He added that Morawiecki remained in contact with Von der Leyen concerning the deliveries and relations with producers. "We hope that these declarations will be carried out," he said.

To date, more than 4 million Covid-19 vaccinations have been performed in Poland, of which over 1.4 million people have had the second dose.