Health sciences

A new batch of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine consisting of 511,290 doses will arrive in Romania on Monday by air at the airports in Otopeni, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara, according to the National COVID-19 Vaccination Coordination Committee (CNCAV).

Pfizer-BioNTech asked for authorization on April 9 to use their Covid-19 vaccine on 12 to 15-year-olds in the United States, which could mark a crucial next step toward achieving herd immunity.

The mass vaccination of teenagers would also relieve an enormous strain on parents who are juggling the demands of homeschooling their children while keeping up with jobs.

The fallout over the AstraZeneca jab persisted on April 8 with several countries halting its use among younger people, as nations raced to secure much-needed vaccines in the face of fresh virus surges.

Coronavirus vaccine maker CureVac has said it hopes its Covid shot will receive European approval in the second quarter.

Bulgaria's Minister of Health, Prof. Kostadin Angelov, on April 7, convened an extraordinary meeting of the National Vaccination Headquarters in connection with the information provided by the European Medicines Agency regarding the Oxford vaccine.

The coordinator of the national COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Valeriu Gheorghita, said on Wednesday that the combination of two or more vaccines is not recommended, referring to the fact that there is a reluctance of people who received the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine to continue the immunization schedule with the same serum.

An opposition Kosovo MP has called on the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, to open vaccination centres for Kosovo citizens at a time when Kosovo has one the lowest COVID vaccination rates in Europe.

A senior official at Europe's medicines regulator has said there is a clear "association" between AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine and very rare blood clots in the brain, though the direct cause of the clots is still unknown.

Senior official with the Health Ministry Andrei Baciu said on Tuesday that this April and May over 8.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine will enter Romania. "We received a total of 2,212,734 doses in March. This week, we will receive another 134,400 doses from Moderna and 110,564 doses from AstraZeneca.

Most European Union member states will have sufficient Covid vaccine supplies to immunize the majority of people by the end of June, much earlier than the bloc's official target, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg.