Doctor Rafila: Romania slipped from 3rd to 19th in EU by vaccine administration rate

Social Democrat deputy, doctor Alexandru Rafila, said today that in order to hold realistic hopes to return to normal at the end of September, Romania needs to rapidly increase the vaccination pace from 50,000 to 100,000 doses daily, pointing out that in terms of the vaccine rollout performance, Romania has slipped from the 3rd to the 19th position among EU countries.

"The vaccination campaign worked quite well in Romania and you know that, at least during the first weeks, Romania was somewhere on a leading position by the number of administered vaccine doses, in proportion to the population. Meanwhile the pace has lost steam, actually I don't know if we have slowed down, but many other counties have stepped up the process and we slipped from the third position to 19th in the EU by the number of doses administered per 100,000 population. We must quickly cross the threshold of almost 50,000 daily doses and move to 100,000 doses per day, so that we may hope to somewhat resume normal activities at the end of September," Professor Alexandru Rafila told a news conference.

He mentioned that there are many administrative barriers and claimed that "the Health Ministry is proving unable to participate in the national vaccination effort".

"The fact that the third vaccination stage has kicked off is a good thing, but there might be hitches at the beginning, especially since the addressability is much higher. There are almost six million people in the category of persons with chronic diseases and essential employees, who were eligible for vaccination in the second stage of the campaign. I think that there are another 6 million in the third stage. (...) I can tell you that PSD was involved with public health experts in the management of the vaccination rollout. Regrettably, the Health Ministry proves incapable of participating in the national vaccination effort," said Alexandru Rafila.

He added that the chairman of the National COVID Vaccination Coordination Committee Valeriu Gheorghita "has done a good job as much as his experience and resources allow."

"But the Health Ministry's inability to get really involved in this vaccination campaign probably also affects the operation of the various vaccination booking platforms," said the PSD deputy. AGERPRES