Slobodna Dalmacija reports that another coronavirus vaccine will arrive in Croatia on Wednesday. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is expected in Zagreb and will be distributed throughout Croatia by public health education institutes (NZJZ).
This vaccine is similar to that of AstraZeneca, i.e., it is a standard vaccine that is not made based on mRNA technology, such as PfizerBiontech or Moderna. However, its advantage, compared to all previous vaccines, is that a person who is vaccinated with this vaccine should be vaccinated only once, meaning you don’t need to go to the doctor twice to get two doses of the vaccine.
With Johnson & Johnson’s arrival, which gives the vaccinated person around 70 percent protection, Croatia will have four vaccines in use for now. The next, fifth vaccine, which is eagerly awaited and could soon receive EMA approval in May this year, is the German vaccine Curevac, which is made on mRNA technology, like Pfizer and Moderna.
According to the announcements, a total of 747 thousand doses of various vaccines should arrive in Croatia by the end of June, with the help of which we would be ready for the tourist season.
The fact that an inter-ministerial meeting was held to discuss the continuation of vaccination of priority groups also speaks in the direction of vaccinating the working-age population as much as possible.
As soon as all elderly and chronically ill people are vaccinated, vaccination of other priority groups is planned. An interdepartmental meeting was held on this topic, where members of various departments proposed groups from their jurisdiction. Thus, the mentioned tourism workers, educators, sailors, professional drivers in road and air transport, police officers, soldiers, craftspeople, shop workers, and other professions are important to be vaccinated at this stage, wrote Vili Beroš, Croatian Minister of Health, in his message.
An Action Plan will be drafted within a few days, which will define the order and manner of priority vaccination.
“I especially want to point out that we will be among the first in the major markets that will vaccinate their tourism workers, which is a clear message of the safety of our destination to tourists who intend to come to Croatia. It is important to note that citizens over the age of 65 and the chronically ill, who cannot or do not want to be vaccinated at the moment, will be able to be vaccinated whenever they decide to do so,” Minister Beroš pointed out.
Given that the tourist season is around the corner, it would certainly be necessary to vaccinate those who work in the tourism sector, or all those who in any way come into contact with tourists as soon as possible. Therefore, before our tourist competitors, Croatia should start vaccinating tourist workers and give guarantees to foreign tour operators that foreign guests are coming to a safe destination.
Maja Bašić, a spokeswoman for HALMED, spoke about the latest with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and whether we can expect it as the sixth vaccine in Croatia.
“HALMED is checking the documentation of the Sputnik V vaccine so that everything would be ready to launch intervention imports. At the same time, the EMA is conducting a process of evaluating the documentation for granting marketing authorization for this vaccine,” said Bašić.
Finally, it is important to note that if the EMA does not approve the Sputnik V vaccine, Croatia will not be able to introduce it “on its own.”
For more on coronavirus in Croatia, including travel, border and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of testing centers across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated section.
