Hundreds of unused AstraZeneca doses pile up in Šalčininkai and Visaginas – district leaders call for action



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The Šalčininkai district administration ensures that residents are invited to get vaccinated regularly, but vaccination with AstraZeneca is generally rejected here.

“They say AstraZeneca doesn’t want to. They agree to get vaccinated with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine,” a local doctor told LNK.

All vaccines used at the vaccination site are Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines only. And most of the AstraZeneca vaccine is available.

“We received 800 doses, we used more than 50. And all the others are currently stored in refrigerators,” Jolanta Černiavskienė, a health specialist from the municipality of Šalčininkai, told LNK.

In Lithuania, after vaccination suspension, the AstraZeneca vaccine is not available at your vaccination point. But if there were, the local said they would not be vaccinated.

“It’s bad to talk on television that people are dying, that’s why,” he said.

The director of the administration says that those unfounded opinions are also the fault of the authorities until Brussels finds out about this vaccine.

“Communication from the central government was also very flawed about this vaccine. Is that, that is, misleading information is enough. Therefore, these processes have been stopped because of this vaccine, ”Josif Rybak, director of the Šalčininkai municipality administration, told LNK News.

In informative comments with Arnas Mazėčius, the director of the Šalčininkai municipal administration, J. Rybak, explained why the locals refuse to be vaccinated with this vaccine.

“We are constantly proposing to liberalize the order; let’s get that immunity with the help of whoever we want.” (…) And the elderly who live in the villages are more cautious with this vaccine. They have no particular arguments. Understand that the residents of our municipality over 65 years of age live mainly in the countryside. Now, due to the quarantine, her children and grandchildren rarely come. They fear the consequences that in 3 months there may be some additional side effects, ”explained J. Rybak.

“It just came to our notice then. And after this suspension, I don’t know how it will be possible to invite them at all,” said the Šalčininkai municipality health specialist.

Not a single dose of AstraZeneca was used in Visaginas, with a cumulative total of more than 800. Only 3 residents of Visaginas wanted to be vaccinated with it, but they also had to be vaccinated with another vaccine.

“A vial of AstraZeneca vaccine contains 10 vaccines. Therefore, if we open the bottle we would lose the next 7, if there were no one who wanted to,” explained the mayor of Visaginas, Erlandas Galaguz.

The municipalities of Šalčininkai and Visaginas continue to ask the Government to change the vaccination procedure, not to keep vaccines on the shelves, but to allow those who want to get vaccinated.

“There are people under 65 who do not have the disease and would agree to get vaccinated to fight the pandemic and the disease faster,” Galaguz said.

Hundreds of unused AstraZeneca doses pile up in Šalčininkai and Visaginas - district leaders call for action

© jp.lt

However, the opinion of the Šalčininkai residents interviewed is usually quite unequivocal.

“No, AstraZeneca is not. 100 percent not.” Very bad reviews about it, I could agree with Sputnik V, I don’t know how the doctor will recommend it, “said an elderly woman.

Another local girl also said she did not want the vaccine because she “still wants to live.”

“This is not so, I have heard that it does not go away much,” said another woman about the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Another man said the vaccine was “terrible.”

The mayor of Visaginas is calling for measures to restore the reputation of the vaccine, the example of the first people said it would be important here.

“The first people of the state and the municipalities were able to do it in public. Demonstrating that there is no fear and encouraging people to trust vaccines, ”said the mayor of Visaginas.

J. Rybak, director of the municipal administration of Šalčininkai, stated that there are currently around 40 thousand people in Lithuania. unused doses of AstraZeneca vaccines.

“This is not a problem for Šalčininkai here,” he said.

The benefits of municipal information campaigns are not many.



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