Romania closes 117 Covid vaccination centres

BUCHAREST: Declining demand for coronavirus vaccinations in Romania has prompted authorities to close 117 vaccination centres and to reduce the schedule at 371 others, health officials have said.

“In the previous week, we re-evaluated the efficiency of fixed vaccination centers. About 80% of fixed vaccination centres vaccinate less than 25% of the vaccination capacity allocated to each stream,” national vaccination committee chief Valeriu Gheorghita said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The number of daily vaccinations in Romania has consistently dropped from a mid-May peak of around 120,000 a day to less than 20,000 a day over the last week. Just 24% of people in Romania - a country of more than 19 million - have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

The number of daily coronavirus infections in recent weeks has dropped to record lows, but Gheorghita warned on Tuesday of a possible resurgence due to the delta strain, which was first identified in India.

If a resurgence increased demand for vaccines, he said, the closed vaccine centers could quickly resume activities. Authorities have reported more than a million infections since the pandemic began and 34,021 have died.