AstraZeneca delay "devastating" for vaccination campaign: Polish official

Vaccine producer AstraZeneca has delayed the delivery of 62,000 vaccine doses to Poland that was due on Thursday, the country's Material Reserves Agency (ARM) said, reported Xinhua.

The agency's Chairman, Michal Kuczmierowski, said the delivery did not take place "due to formalities" and claimed AstraZeneca had informed him at the very last moment of the delay.

"This situation is absolutely scandalous," Kuczmierowski told the Polish news channel TVN24. "These kinds of practices are devastating to our vaccination schedule."

The vaccine doses were scheduled to be administered to medical workers, who together with the elderly and teachers are currently eligible to receive jabs in the country. Earlier, the AstraZeneca vaccine was only administered to teaching staff, pending a government decision to expand the use of the vaccine to other groups.

Michal Dworczyk, the government's coordinator of the vaccination campaign, announced plans on Thursday to extend the period between administering the first and second doses of both the AstraZeneca and the Pfizer vaccines.

The second dose of AstraZeneca will be administered 12 weeks after the first, after earlier reports indicated the government was considering a period between 10 weeks and 12 weeks. For the Pfizer vaccine, the period between the first and second jab will be set at 42 days, Dworczyk said.

Poland is currently administering the vaccines produced by AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna, which are the three currently approved by the European Union. Dworczyk said the government is still analyzing the possibility of purchasing China's Sinopharm vaccine.

In total, 3.6 million Poles have so far received at least the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, of whom 1.2 million have got two jabs, according to the Polish government.

The Polish authorities on Thursday confirmed 15,250 new cases. Since the start of the pandemic, 1,750,659 Poles have been infected with COVID-19 at one point, and 44,649 of them have died.