Romania has decided to quarantine 43.000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, the authorities taking this decision as an alternative to destroying them, waiting to see if there is a possibility to keep them for a longer period of time.
The Romanian authorities are waiting to receive information from the European institutions regarding the validity of this vaccine against COVID-19 and beyond the 6-month storage period, and if the storage period can be extended, they will not be destroyed.
"Also, we know that yesterday, June 30, about 43 thousand vaccine doses from the Oxford AstraZeneca company expired, from the validity period, there are seven different lots. We took the decision yesterday to quarantine these doses and not enter the destruction process, precisely because additional data regarding the stability period is expected.
As such, these doses are quarantined, they are not destroyed and if, in the next period, the manufacturer provides us with data certifying a long-term stability or longer than 6 months, data to be authorized by the European Regulatory Agency , by the European Medicines Agency and based on the recommendations of the World Health Organization, it is very possible to have this extension of the validity period. That is precisely why we preferred to quarantine the doses, not to destroy them.
If the data will be eloquent enough to show stability beyond 6 months, then we will certainly act accordingly. As such, all doses have been withdrawn or are in the process of being withdrawn from the vaccination centers and quarantined at the DSPs level and also at the regional storage centers level.”
