Vaccinations for teachers of grades 1 to 3 in Polish schools, as well as for those who work in kindergartens and nurseries, are scheduled to be administered from Friday.
Michał Dworczyk, the official spearheading Poland's inoculation drive, said he hoped the country’s teachers would be vaccinated by the end of February.
Teachers aged up to 60 will be given shots developed jointly by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
The first batch of 120,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in Poland on Saturday morning.
Michał Dworczyk, the man in charge of Poland's COVID-19 vaccination campaign, seen on a screen during a virtual media briefing. Photo: PAP/Paweł Supernak
Dworczyk, the Polish prime minister's top aide, announced last week that the AstraZeneca shots would be given only to people aged 60 or under in Poland.
Europe's medicines regulator on January 29 approved the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine for people over the age of 18, the third coronavirus shot to be cleared for use in the European Union.
But the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said there were not yet enough results for people over the age of 55 to determine how well the vaccine would work for this group.
As of Sunday, over 1.6 million COVID-19 shots had been administered in Poland in total, according to officials.
The health ministry on Sunday reported 4,728 new coronavirus infections and 93 more deaths, bringing Poland’s total number of cases during the pandemic to 1,550,255 and fatalities to 39,087.
Frontline healthcare workers were first in line to be inoculated in Poland, followed by nursing home residents and the elderly. Next up for shots are teachers, police, and soldiers.
(pk)
Source: IAR/Polish Radio