Poland has sold its first tranche of 1.5 million unused COVID-19 vaccines to Spain and Portugal, broadcaster RMF FM reports.
Last month, the government confirmed that it was seeking to sell unused supplies, following a significant slowdown in registration for vaccination. It began to seek buyers for Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, which have shorter shelf lives.
According to RMF, Poland has already sold one million doses of Pfizer to Spain and half a million to Portugal. The shipments have reportedly already left the warehouses of the Government Agency of Strategic Reserves (RARS).
The Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily reported last month that 40 countries have expressed willingness to buy vaccines from Poland, including Ukraine, Georgia, Vietnam and Australia.
This week, Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed that the Polish government had offered his country AstraZeneca vaccines as humanitarian aid. Warsaw has not commented on the remarks.
Poland’s vaccine rollout, which initially proceeded at roughly the same rate as the European Union average, has since mid-June fallen significantly behind. The government admits there has been a “very concerning” decline in registrations.
To encourage people to get the jab it has offered various incentives, including a lottery for fully vaccinated people with a one million zloty (€222,000) top prize.
But senior officials have increasingly talked of using sticks as well as carrots, including requiring proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result to access some venues.
In opposition to such moves, Poland has recently seen a growth in the activity of anti-vaccine groups. On Saturday, thousands of people marched against compulsory vaccination in the city of Katowice. Some vaccination points have been attacked.
Main image credit: Agência Brasília/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
