Health authorities in Cyprus on Tuesday called for the speedy covid-19 vaccination of all eligible citizens as delays in the inoculation programme are recorded because of the controversial Astrazeneca jab.
The AstraZeneca shot has been dogged by doubts over possible side effects and Cyprus was among European countries which suspended it last week pending investigations by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
EMA has since given the green light saying there is no proven link and that people should not panic.
Cyprus’ inoculation programme includes vaccines from Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna.
There have been no publicly reported cases of any side effects from the AstraZeneca vaccine in Cyprus.
The Health Ministry has expressed optimism that in the next two weeks it will proceed with the scheduled vaccination of all people belonging to high-risk groups.
The Ministry’s Olga Kalakouta told Philenews: “This is the inoculation programme’s priority right now, it may be up to two weeks before the vaccine portal re-opens for the general population based on age.”
Nonetheless, the Ministry still believes that an additional 195,000 people will be vaccinated with at least the first dose of the covid-19 vaccine by the first week of May.
