MZ: Decision on the second booster on Thursday

- We are after meeting with the vaccinations team and the COVID-19 Council. In fact, the indications confirm what the EMA recently announced, i.e. that the fourth dose is intended for the population over 60 years of age. We are also determining the distances between individual vaccinations - he said.

Registration for vaccinations will be made in the same way as before. - We are technically prepared for it, so everything will happen on Friday and next week. We will issue referrals, it will be possible to subscribe using all of these channels that are possible - he announced.

When asked whether it is worth vaccinating with mRNA preparations that are currently available, or waiting for a possible new variant of the vaccine, Niedzielski said that vaccination with the currently available preparations would be recommended. - If we were sure that by September we will have new vaccines in Poland, and this interval between vaccinations must be at least three months, in this situation, of course, one might wonder whether or not to wait. But there are too many question marks, risks here - he admitted. One key is that it is not known when new vaccines will be physically available. - Producers are already starting to shyly say that in fact September will be an approval, but there is a production process - he pointed out.

In this situation, however, the ministry decided to open the possibility of being vaccinated with a second booster now for younger seniors. Younger people, under 60 years of age, have to wait, unless they have individual indications resulting from their health condition - it is not known whether the Ministry of Health will open the possibility of vaccination with the fourth dose for all adults only after the approval of new preparations, including the Omikron variant or whether he will make such a decision earlier, as the Czech Republic has already done, which announced this week that all adults can vaccinate the second booster.