First Doses of Vaccine against Coronavirus Arrive in Slovakia

Bratislava, December 26 (TASR) – The first doses of vaccine against coronavirus arrived in Slovakia on Saturday and they were subsequently stored in a deep-freeze container at Faculty Hospital in Nitra, the State Institute for Drug Supervision (SUKL) announced on the same day.

“We can confirm that everything is prepared for vaccination,” stated SUKL.
“Vaccines have come to a perfectly prepared Faculty Hospital in Nitra. They’ll be further distributed to Faculty Hospital in Banska Bystrica, Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Kosice and University Hospital in Bratislava,” Health Minister Marek Krajci (OLANO) wrote on Facebook. Krajci is due to hold a press conference in Nitra later on Saturday.

A total of 9,750 doses of coronavirus vaccine were scheduled to arrive in Slovakia on Saturday. This vaccine should be applied in two shots three weeks apart.

Slovakia, which has a population of almost 5.5 million, has signed contracts for 18 million doses in total, while it’s expected that 3.3 million people will be given jabs.

The first groups to be vaccinated include health-care professionals, nursing home staff and people involved with critical infrastructure. The second wave of vaccination should concern residents of care homes, the elderly older than 65 and the chronically ill. People who represent a high risk in terms of spreading the infection should be vaccinated as part of the third wave and members of the general public older than 18 in the fourth one.