Adam Niedzielski said the second booster would be available from the next day, Friday, September 16, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The health minister stressed that “vaccination is the most important weapon against COVID-19.”
At-risk groups
He also gave assurances that COVID-19 drugs, molnupiravir and paxlovid, were being provided to hospitals treating coronavirus patients from at-risk groups.
“Namely, senior patients and patients suffering from various illnesses that result in the weakening of their immune systems,” the health minister added.
For these groups, a second booster dose was rolled out earlier this year.
Niedzielski on Thursday estimated that over 5 million people from these at-risk groups were eligible for the second booster dose, of whom some 1.6 million had already had the shot.
Second booster for general population
Meanwhile, as of Friday the second booster jab will be made available to all people aged over twelve, who had received the first booster at least three months earlier, namely “some 5,800,000 million people,” the health minister told reporters.
Niedzielski said that now a total of close to 11 million Poles were eligible for the second COVID-19 booster dose, which means that “we'll have around 9 million people to vaccinate.”
The health minister added that the second booster vaccination would be made with a new vaccine, “directed against the omicron variant in the BA.1 version,” the PAP news agency reported.
In May, Poland downgraded its classification of the COVID-19 pandemic, lifting "a state of epidemic" and announcing "a state of epidemic threat" instead.
(pm)
Source: PAP, medonet.pl