Public health authorities said that 1,610 adverse reactions had been reported among those who received the vaccines by Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, a total of 3,630 doses have been wasted in the rollout, according to the Polish health ministry.
As of Thursday, Poland had injected over 1.36 million first doses, while more than 520,000 people have received a second shot, health ministry data showed.
Poland on Thursday reported 7,008 new coronavirus infections and 456 more deaths, bringing its total number of cases during the pandemic to 1,570,658 and fatalities to 40,177.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced in December that his government had secured vaccines for the Polish population from six leading international drug makers.
The Polish prime minister's top aide, Michał Dworczyk, said last week that his country had ordered almost 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in total, enough to inoculate 58 million people, more than its population of around 38 million.
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 said in a tweet on Sunday that, in terms of coronavirus vaccine doses given per 100 people, Poland had "outdistanced" many other European countries, including Germany and France, and "far exceeded the EU average."
"We would like to thank all the people and institutions involved in the national vaccination programme," he tweeted.
The European Union, of which Poland is part, has struck deals to secure vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Moderna, CureVac, Sanofi-GSK, and Johnson & Johnson.
On Thursday morning, Poland received its second delivery of 141,000 doses of a vaccine offered by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, officials said.
Photo: EPA/JOE GIDDENS
Later in the day, a delayed third shipment of 82,000 doses of a vaccine produced by US drug maker Moderna was expected to be delivered to the country, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Photo: PAP/Jakub Kaczmarczyk
On Monday, a shipment of around 320,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech arrived at Warsaw's Chopin Airport, Michał Kuczmierowski, head of Poland's Material Reserves Agency (ARM), told the media.
Photo: PAP/Łukasz Gągulski
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.
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.
At the end of December, the government launched a media campaign called Szczepimy Się (Let's Get Vaccinated) to encourage Poles to get COVID-19 shots.
In the first quarter of this year, around 3 million people are expected to be vaccinated for COVID-19 throughout the country.
Healthcare workers are the top priority group for inoculation, followed by nursing home residents, the elderly, people with chronic health conditions, teachers, police, and soldiers.
The first vaccines for the coronavirus were administered in Poland on Dec. 27, as part of a coordinated rollout across the European Union. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
Poland last month began administering COVID-19 vaccines to citizens over 70.
People in the 80+ age group have been able to sign up for COVID-19 shots since January 15.
Seniors can send a text message to sign up for a shot. They can also go online to register or call a 989 vaccination hotline to schedule an appointment. Direct reservations at vaccination sites are possible, but officials have advised people against visiting in person to limit the risk of exposure.
Meanwhile, younger Polish adults can put their names on a waiting list for a vaccine, but for now there is no timeline on when they will be able to receive a shot.
Poland plans to begin vaccinating teachers on Friday. By Wednesday afternoon, more than 265,000 teachers had signed up for the shots, according to officials.
Almost 6,000 vaccination sites are available to citizens as the country rolls out its COVID-19 immunization campaign.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Tuesday that around 6.7 million coronavirus vaccine doses were expected to reach Poland by the end of March, including 4.8 million from Pfizer/BioNTech, 1.15 million from AstraZeneca, and 744,000 from Moderna.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR, gov.pl
