Medical research

US pharmaceutical company Pfizer has confirmed it will temporarily reduce deliveries to Europe of its Covid-19 vaccine while it upgrades production capacity to 2 billion vaccine doses per year.

Six European Union governments asked the executive EU Commission in a letter on Friday to pressure Pfizer-BioNTech, "to ensure stability and transparency of timely deliveries" of vaccines agianst Covid-19.

Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu said on Friday that Romania will also be affected by the slowdown in the delivery of anti-COVID vaccine doses by the producer Pfizer, but the vaccination campaign will continue, considering that our country has a reserve of doses. "Romania will also be affected, deliveries will be reduced in the next three weeks.

Delivery will be reduced until biotechnology firm BioNTech increases its production capacity.
"This temporary reduction will affect all European countries," the Institute said in a statement.
They also state that they expected to receive 43.875 doses of vaccines from Pfizer next week, but that, in all likelihood, they will now receive 36.075 doses.

Most Greeks say they will get the Covid-19 vaccine

US firm Johnson & Johnson is likely to apply for EU approval for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate in February, a top lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Clinical data of the vaccine, which Johnson & Johnson is developing through its subsidiary Janssen, have been assessed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) since Dec. 1 under a rolling review to speed up possible approval.

After the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and before the second dose, the immunized should be protected from re-infection.

This is what Prof. Radka Argirova, President of the Bulgarian Society of Medical Virology, commented this week on the TV + and TV1.

Greece has received the first batch of coronavirus vaccines developed by Moderna Inc.

Coming on top of ongoing distribution of Pfizer-BioNTech shots, the country received the first 8,000 doses of the vaccine, approved for use by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) last week, and expects a total of 20,000 doses to be delivered by the end of January.

"According to information from the Ministry of Health, 1.5 million dozes have been requested of the first two vaccines - Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna - to be supplied by the end of the year, which is enough for about 10 percent of the population in Bulgaria," told BNR Arkadi Sharkov, health economist from the Expert Club for Economics and Politics (EKIP).

By the end of January, a flu wave is expected to occur. That's what Prof. Iva Hristova, Deputy Director of the Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases said before BNT.

She pointed out that the flu virus is late this year and the initial  expectations of specialists are for a much lower flu wave.