AMSTERDAM: The Netherlands cannot yet say whether it will be among the first EU countries ready to start with COVID-19 vaccinations in December, several health officials said on Thursday, as the number of infections in the nation hit a new daily high.
EU commission head Ursula von der Leyen said earlier that European Union countries would begin inoculating people against the coronavirus on Dec. 27-29, assuming the EU regulator approves a vaccine.
But officials in the country, which registered a record 12,779 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours on Thursday to a total of more than 652,500, downplayed chances they would be ready this month.
“We have always said we were on track to start vaccinations in January,” said spokeswoman Sonja Kloppenburg of the Dutch municipal health authorities (GGD). “And that remains the case.”
“We will start when we feel it is safe to do so.”
Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge on Wednesday said “a lot” still had to happen before vaccines could be administered.
Harald Wychgel, a spokesman for the National Institute for Health (RIVM), which will oversee the vaccine rollout, told Reuters there was no fixed start date and that a plan would be released Monday.
“It’s not yet possible to give a specific date because we are in the middle of putting together a complex plan of execution,” he said.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said an expert panel will convene, also Monday, to evaluate the vaccine made by U.S. company Pfizer and German partner BioNTech.
The largest bottleneck, De Jonge said in a parliamentary debate, was finalising the IT systems needed for requesting a vaccine and registering dispensation of the shots, as this required specific information on their working and possible side effects which would only become available after the EMA’s approval.
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