Illustrative stock photo (source: Mesto Žilina)
The National Health Information Centre (NCZI) no longer allows people waiting for the second Covid vaccine shot to cancel their registration.
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The reason is chaos accompanying the cancellation and repeated registration for the vaccine, the Sme daily reported.
What to do now
People who are now waiting for the second vaccine shot but become sick shortly before the appointment can cancel by calling the Health Ministry's helpline (+421(0)800 174-174) or NCZI's helpline (+421(0)2 3235-3030).
These people will stay in the system, but their registration will be inactive for a few days. Subsequently, they will receive a new appointment, NCZI spokesperson Veronika Bauch told Sme.
It is also possible to postpone an appointment if a person is on holiday, but the time difference between the first and second shot of an mRNA vaccine (Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech) should not be longer than 42 days. In the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, it should be 12 weeks.
Although it is possible to stretch these dates, people should get their second shot as soon as possible, Sme reported.
If people do not receive a date for the second vaccination appointment in a respective period, they should contact the helplines.
Problems with AstraZeneca
The vaccination appointments have been cancelled en masse mostly in the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, particularly after the State Institute for Drug Control (ŠÚKL) announced in early May that there might have been a link between the vaccine and the death of a 47-year-old woman.
Later, Health Minister Vladimír Lengvarský (OĽaNO nominee) suspended the administration of this vaccine for people who have not been vaccinated yet, giving a lack of stock of the vaccine as a reason.
More than 21,000 people waiting for the AstraZeneca shot then started cancelling their registration; 9,000 of them were already vaccinated with the first jab. Some of them changed their mind later and started re-registering in the online waiting room system.
One of the reasons, according to Sme, was the announcement that everybody entitled to the vaccine can now receive the vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna.
However, several people faced problems with their new registration, though. They told Sme that they either fail to receive a new appointment or are unable to call the call centre run by the Health Ministry or NCZI. The ministry recommends being patient and trying several times.
