The charter flight landed at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport in the early morning, Michał Kuczmierowski, head of the country's Material Reserves Agency (ARM), told the media.
The shipment was transferred to one of the agency's warehouses, from where it will be distributed to pharmaceutical wholesalers and then to hospitals and vaccination sites across the country, state broadcaster TVP Info reported.
The first batch of 10,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses arrived in Poland on December 26.
A day later a 52-year-old Warsaw hospital nurse became the first Pole to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
As of Monday, more than 2.1 million COVID-19 vaccine shots had been administered across the country.
The immunization effort began after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on December 21 recommended conditional approval for a coronavirus vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech for use across the European Union.
That decision by the EU regulator was subsequently greenlighted by the bloc’s executive, the European Commission.
The European Medicines Agency on January 6 gave the green light to a COVID-19 vaccine developed by US drug maker Moderna, the second shot it had approved, as countries stepped up inoculation efforts amid fears of more contagious strains of the coronavirus.
The first delivery of 27,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine arrived in Poland on January 12, followed by a second batch of 42,000 doses on January 31 and a third shipment of 82,000 doses on February 11, according to officials.
The European medicines regulator on January 29 approved an AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine for people over the age of 18, the third coronavirus shot to be cleared for use in the EU.
Poland on February 6 received its first delivery of 120,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, followed a second shipment of 141,000 doses on February 11, according to officials.
In the first quarter of this year, around 3.1 million people are expected to be vaccinated for COVID-19 throughout the country.
Frontline healthcare workers are first in line to be inoculated, followed by nursing home residents, the elderly, people with chronic health conditions, teachers, police, and soldiers.
Poland last month began administering COVID-19 vaccines to its senior citizens.
The country began vaccinating teachers this month as it moves to the next stage of its COVID-19 inoculation campaign.
Poland on Monday reported 2,543 new coronavirus infections and 25 more deaths, bringing its total number of cases during the pandemic to 1,591,497 and fatalities to 40,832.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR, PAP
