Poland's Health Minister Adam Niedzielski announced on Thursday that - starting Friday (September 16) - Poland would launch second COVID-19 booster shots for all people aged 12+, who had already received basic vaccination and first booster shots.
According to minister Niedzielski, vaccination is the key weapon in the fight against the coronavirus.
"From September 16 we are introducing second booster shots for people aged 12+, who already have received the basic vaccination scheme and first booster. This way we are completing the existing guidelines regarding people with impaired immunity and those aged 60+, by expanding the group of people eligible for vaccination," the health minister said.
Niedzielski also assured that medicine for COVID-19 - molnupiravir and paxlovid - were available for those in need.
"We are in the middle of receiving further batches of the medicine, which will be delivered to hospitals where risk-group patients are being treated. Here I mean senior patients as well as patients with various diseases which result in weakening of the immune system," he added.
No choice of vaccine
The health minister also said Poland had secured 4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines targeting the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. "More or less half from Pfizer and half from Moderna," he said.
"When going to the fourth vaccination with the second booster, patients won't be able to choose between BA.1 and BA.4/BA.5 vaccines. Both vaccines are equally safe and equally effective," said Health Ministry spokesperson Wojciech Andrusiewicz.
He added that a public campaign would be launched in the coming days, addressed to people doubting positive effects of vaccination.
WHO: the end is in sight
The world has never been in a better position to end the COVID-19 pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, urging nations to keep up their efforts against the virus that has killed over six million people. "We are not there yet. But the end is in sight," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a virtual press conference. Deaths from COVID-19 last week were the lowest since March 2020, the U.N. agency reported. While the WHO expects continued future waves of COVID-19 infections, the world had tools in hand such as vaccines and antivirals to prevent serious infections, said Maria Kerkhove, technical lead for COVID-19. Monkeypox cases, too, were on a downtrend but Tedros urged countries to keep up the fight. "As with COVID-19, this is not the time to relax or let down our guard."
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP