Romania ranks second in EU in terms of administering complete two-dose COVID-19 vaccine

Romania is ranking second in the European Union and sixth in the world in terms of administering the second and last dose of the COVID-19 vaccine reported per 100 people, according to Chairman of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Coordination Committee (CNCAV) Valeriu Gheorghita.

"Compared with the other member states of the European Union, I can tell you that at the moment in terms of the number of doses administered per 100 people, Romania is in third place, with a percentage of 7.26. As far as the number of people vaccinated with two doses, practically fully vaccinated, we are talking about a vaccination rate of 3% of the eligible population and we are in second place, together with Denmark; ranking first is Malta. Worldwide, Romania is on the sixth place in terms of the administration of the second dose, practically as a total number of fully vaccinated people per 100 people," Gheorghita said on Tuesday at the Government House.

He also drew attention to the fact that new data on the efficacy of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines were released on Monday following a study in Scotland of around 5.4 million people, of whom more than 1.1 million got vaccinated with the first dose, the remaining 3.2 million being unvaccinated. Gheorghita said that the data are "as good as possible" in terms of efficiency in relation to the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 who needed hospitalisation.

"In practice, what was observed was that approximately 28 days after the first dose the efficacy of the vaccines was over 85% for the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine and over 94% for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in terms of hospitalisation of patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Once again, these data are compared against the people who have not been vaccinated, and that shows two important things: on the one hand, it is important that the second dose of the vaccine produced by BioNTech-Pfizer be administered on schedule. Why? Because monitoring data have showed that after 28 days the efficacy rate decreases progressively, so it is important to do the second dose and also once again confirm the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine as against severe forms of the disease, with respect to hospitalisation and, implicitly, to deaths from this disease, while also confirming that the gap between the two doses is important if the efficacy of the this type of vaccine is to be increased," he said.

About the vaccination appointment scheduling, he said 476,528 people are scheduled for the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 614,000 for the second and final dose, with the last day of appointment being April 17; 118,000 people are scheduled for the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 201,000 for the second and final dose, with the last day of appointment being mid-March.