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Health Minister Nelu Tătaru stated in Digi24’s Evening Journal that stopping the AstraZeneca vaccine trial is a normal procedure and that “this always happens” in phase 3 of the vaccine trial. The minister says that the procedure continues and that Romania will receive a series of doses of the vaccines purchased by the European Commission.
Cosmin Prelipceanu: The vaccine that we also hope has entered a technological break, we can call it. How big is the concern?
Nelu Tătaru: You are with one of the companies with which the European Commission has contracts. In fact, it’s in a phase 3 study. Phase 3 also means patients or subjects with comorbidities and then any incident stops that study, and an independent team evaluates that patient. This is the procedure, this always happens. It remains that the 300 million doses purchased by the EC, with a possible increase of 100 million to come in December, a first tranche of 30 million, and in the first quarter of next year we can benefit from them.
Cosmin Prelipceanu: So you say the process continues.
Nelu Tătaru: The process goes further, there are five companies with which the European Commission is currently in talks and contracts.
Cosmin Prelipceanu: Is December a fixed date or will we receive it in December if it will be ready by then?
Nelu Tătaru: The first tranche was expected to arrive in December and we could do the first vaccinations in January. The tranche that would come to Romania was 1,290,000 doses. But, as long as this vaccine is safe, we will know it and we will find it on the European market.
Cosmin Prelipceanu: How many beneficiaries and who will be the first?
Nelu Tătaru: We have made a request to the European Commission for 10,700,000 citizens. Priority, as we know, will be given to extreme ages, comorbidities and personnel working in the health sector, as well as to teachers.
Final clinical trials for the coronary artery disease vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, were suspended after a participant had an adverse reaction in the UK. “In large studies, these random diseases will always occur, but they must be controlled independently before proceeding,” said a spokesman for the University of Oxford.
Editor: Adrian Dumitru
