RIGA, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Like most other European Union (EU) members, Latvia started its COVID-19 vaccination campaign at the end of last year, aiming to immunize most of its population by the end of this summer.
However, due to various reasons, the vaccination campaign has not been as smooth as expected, which now calls Latvia's chances of achieving herd immunity by August or September into question.
So far, Latvia has been using COVID-19 vaccines made by AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech - the three jabs approved by the European regulator for use in the EU. On Tuesday, Latvia received the first shipment of the fourth EU-approved COVID-19 vaccine, made by Johnson & Johnson, but its use was immediately put on hold because of concerns that this vaccine might be the cause of rare cases of blood clots.
The main obstacle to Latvia's vaccination drive has been delays in vaccine deliveries, but blunders have also been made by the Baltic country's health authorities.
In November 2020, Latvian officials passed up an opportunity to order over 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, hoping that the country will be able to rely on vaccine deliveries from AstraZeneca.
However, AstraZeneca has failed to fulfil the EU member states' - among them Latvia's -- vaccine orders, and reports of the AstraZeneca jab's potentially life-threatening side effects have badly damaged its popularity. Accordingly, the country briefly suspended the use of the AstraZeneca jab in mid-March, while the EU medicines regulator was reviewing its safety.
So far, however, Latvia has not recorded any cases of blood clots, or thromboembolism, following inoculation with the AstraZeneca jab, and Latvian health experts claim that the vaccine has fallen into disrepute quite undeservedly.
Meanwhile, health officials started to roll over the failure to procure the necessary amount of other COVID-19 vaccines. In January, Health Minister Ilze Vinkele lost her job and was replaced by Daniels Pavluts, who ordered an inquiry into Latvia's botched vaccine procurement.
As a result of this inquiry, Pavluts demoted the Health Ministry's top administrator and opened a disciplinary probe against the head of the State Agency of Medicines.
Latvia's vaccine rollout gathered pace, and on April 5, seven mass vaccination centers opened in Riga and several other cities to speed up the process, but COVID-19 vaccines at these centers were only available to groups prioritized for vaccination -- the elderly and people with chronic health conditions.
This prompted calls from the public to let everyone who wants the vaccine to get it at the vaccination centers, which on the first days of operation failed to administer all the vaccine doses at their disposal, also because they only offered the AstraZeneca shot.
Addressing Latvia's slow vaccine rollout at a government meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins did not hide his exasperation over the many hindrances that have been holding back the immunization of Latvia's population and called Health Minister Pavluts as the official responsible for the process to task.
However, the prime minister also said that he was confident that the Health Ministry was capable of coping with the task of immunizing the population against the virus. "The Health Ministry must cope with this challenge and I am sure that it will," Karins told reporters following the cabinet meeting.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.
Meanwhile, 272 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 88 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on April 13. Enditem
