2021-01-02 10:03 update: 2021-01-04, 11:16
Second batch of Covid vaccines is about to arrive to Poland. Fot. PAP/Marcin Bielecki
Poland will use up the first batch of 300,000 Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccines by Monday, but a second identical batch is expected to arrive in the country on the same day, the head of a state reserve agency has told PAP.
"The first large part of vaccines was distributed by Wednesday and Thursday morning. At the same time (...) we had collected orders for supplies that will be carried out on Monday by noon," said Michal Kuczmierowski, president of the Material Reserves Agency.
"It seems that the supplies will use up the first batch in full. So from the 300,000 we received, 150,000 doses will be supplied to hospitals on Monday morning and, also on Monday, we're expecting a delivery of another 300,000 doses," Kuczmierowski said.
The first batch of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived in Poland on December 25. The vaccinations were launched two days later. Over 47,600 Poles have already received the first of two COVID-19 jabs, the health ministry reported on Friday morning.
Poland is expected to receive 1.5 mln doses of the coronavirus vaccine by the end of January, in batches of 300,000 doses every week. Two shots are needed for each person to be vaccinated.
At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Michal Dworczyk, head of the prime minister's office, said 50,000 doses of the second batch will also be distributed to hospitals on Monday.
"On Monday, nearly 200,000 doses of the vaccine will be distributed to nodal hospitals. This means that from both batches that will have arrived in Poland (by Monday - PAP), all the vaccines that were to be distributed in the first step will be given out, and the remaining vaccines will remain in warehouses, because we need to remember that the full vaccination process requires two doses," Dworczyk said.
"All people from the 'zero' group will have been vaccinated in nodal hospitals by the end of (next) week," the prime minister's official also said.
The 'zero' group is mainly medical personnel. (PAP)
