Coronavirus vaccinations may start in December in Romania; however, not everyone will receive a dose: Young people under the age of 18, as well as people with severe chronic illnesses, won’t be vaccinated, Romanian news portal ziare.com reports. According to the site, collective immunization in Romania might be accomplished in the second half of 2021.
Valeriu Gheorghiţă, the coordinator of the national vaccination campaign to combat the coronavirus infection said that young people under the age of 18 and people with serious and terminal chronic diseases will not be immunized, as the developers of the vaccines did not carry out studies on these groups of people.
“Until this moment, a single company has included in its studies people between 12 and 18 years in studies, so certainly we cannot vaccinate those under 18, at least not in the next period. Similarly, people with chronic illnesses were not included in the clinical studies,” the doctor explained on Digi24. “So patients who were unstable, such as cancer patients in a very advanced stage, final stage, or whose cancer was not under control,” Gheorghiţă added, were not included in the clinical studies because the priority was to include several age groups without any chronic sicknesses; the plan is to wait until later, when it is safe, and then add those who are more vulnerable or have other diseases.
The doctor added that those who have been infected with coronavirus may also be vaccinated, but it might be delayed, as their bodies have already produced antibodies.
When asked if vaccinated people should respect the safety measures, the doctor said that everybody must comply with these rules until the country reaches collective immunization.
“Definitely yes, it is important to continue to respect the preventive measures, but at some point, these measures will be easily withdrawn as we reach the threshold of collective immunization”, Gheorghiţă said.
The doctor also said that this threshold may be achieved in the second half of 2021, but only if people’s level of acceptance is high.
Title image: Vaccination may start in December in the country.
