(source: AP/SITA)
Slovak vaccination strategy will see some changes. Vaccines from the AstraZeneca company should be administered only to people older than 60, the Denník N daily reported on Tuesday.
The Vaxzevria vaccine by AstraZeneca was originally administered to younger age groups in Slovakia, even after some countries in western Europe deemed the vaccine for older generations alone. In Slovakia, people younger than 60 have been vaccinated with this vaccine until its rollout was halted earlier in May.
The recently reported change in age groups will apply only to people who will receive appointments for their first jab of AstraZeneca once the halt is lifted. These vaccines are not currently used for first doses.
The Health Ministry stated that the main reason for suspending Vaxzevria use in the country is lack of supplies, with the aim of sparing the supplies available for people who have already received one AstraZeneca dose and to receive their second one 10 weeks after the first.
Unlike some other countries, including Germany (first dose Vaxzevria, second dose and mRNA vaccine), the combination of vaccines from different producers is currently not carried out in Slovakia.
Health Minister Vladimír Lengvarský said that there will be enough vaccines for all those who are to receive their second Vaxzevria jab in May. Slovakia received 150,000 doses by AstraZeneca last week, which should be enough for May appointments, he said on the Radio Expres talk show on May 25.
More Janssens
The Janssen vaccine by the Johnson & Johnson company should start arriving to Slovakia in bigger batches as of July. Currently, Slovakia has 19,000 such vaccines on stock, quite insignificant in the context of hundreds of thousands of vaccines administered in Slovakia in the past weeks.
More than a million doses are expected in the second half of this year, Lengvarský said.
The state plans for this one-dose vaccine to be particularly administered by mobile vaccination teams. Dozens of teams are currently vaccinating people in social care homes and in their own homes.
The minister hinted that according to some studies, the population will need to receive a third dose of the Covid vaccine after the first two.
“We await conclusions of experts on whether the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson is appropriate for re-vaccination after vaccination with another vaccine,” he noted.
