"Significant boost in vaccinations". Poland receives 74,000 doses of Astrazeneca shot

The RARS chief also informed that 507,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive in Poland on Monday. Mr Kuczmierowski added that future deliveries of this product will be even larger - the next one after Monday as large as 870,000.

"We're very glad as it means a significant boost in vaccination programme" - he said.

Poland has not yet been informed about the exact date of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. "It will happen in the second half of April, we're still waiting for confirmation of the exact date and the number of doses" - Michał Kuczmierowski said.

Four vaccines have been approved by the European Union so far: Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and recently Johnson & Johnson. The first three are administered in two doses, while the fourth one - in a single shot.

The arrival of the Johnson & Johnson shot is a welcome boost to Europe's faltering vaccination campaign.

The European Union will ensure that coronavirus vaccines produced by AstraZeneca within the bloc stay there until the company returns to fulfilling its delivery commitments, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on Friday.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen voiced frustration on Thursday (March 26) over a massive shortfall in contracted deliveries of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, as a third wave of infections surged across Europe.

With inoculation programmes running far behind those of Britain and the United States, the head of the EU executive warned that vaccine exports by the British-Swedish company would be blocked until it delivers the shots it promised to the EU.

"The company has to catch up, has to honour the contract it has with the European member states, before it can engage again in exporting vaccines," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference after a video-conference summit of the European Union's leaders.

Of 300 million doses due to be delivered to EU countries by the end of June, Astrazeneca aims to deliver only 100 million.