BUCHAREST, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The first shipment of 60,000 Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine doses arrived in Romania on Wednesday. Pending the conclusion of an investigation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for possible blood clot risk, the vaccines will be stored in a warehouse, the National Coordinating Committee for Vaccination Activities against COVID-19 (CNCAV) said.
In the U.S., six blood clot cases have been reported among more than seven million people who received the shot.
This batch entered Romania via its land border with Hungary one day after the American pharmaceutical company said on Tuesday it had suspended the rollout of its vaccine in the European Union (EU).
Under its contract, Johnson & Johnson had committed to delivering 55 million vaccine doses to the EU by the end of June. The first vaccine shipments reached the EU states on Monday, but the U.S. company has since suspended further deliveries.
Under the initial contract, Romania is to receive another 100,000 doses this month, 518,400 doses in May and 1.6 million in June.
CNCAV chief Valeriu Gheorghita said on Tuesday that, once the EMA green-lights it, the easy-to-store, single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will first be used to vaccinate inmates in Romania's prisons.
Romania is stepping up its vaccination campaign launched on Dec. 27, 2020, to combat a new wave of the pandemic. In the past seven days, the daily number of vaccinations in the country has increased from 55,339 to 76,590. To date, more than 2.37 million Romanians have been vaccinated, 1.46 million of them with two doses.
The government's objective is to vaccinate ten million people -- about half of the country's population -- as soon as possible: five million by June 1, and all ten million by Aug. 1.
Currently, three vaccines - those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca -- are approved for use in Romania.
Globally, 272 candidate vaccines are still being developed -- 88 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to the World Health Organization. Enditem
