Poland seeks more flu vaccines amid shortage during pandemic

  Polish government is trying to secure more flu vaccines from international producers amid a national short fueled by higher demand during coronavirus pandemic, Poland's health minister said Tuesday.

Health Minister am Niedzielski said that Poland generally has very low flu vaccinations rates and is seeing a vaccine short w because orders for this fall and winter were based on last year's demand.

Niedzielski said in an interview on Polish commercial station Rio Zet that his ministry held a meeting on Monday with representatives of key vaccine suppliers to explore possibility of getting more vaccine shipments to Poland.

During last flu season, about 1.5 million people, or some 4% of Poland's population of 38 million were vaccinated for flu, health minister said. Some 100,000 unused vaccines must be disposed of, he said.

“ vaccine procurement mechanism is always based on previous year,” Niedzielski said. “Unfortunately, we are in a way trapped by low vaccination rate of last year.”

low flu vaccination rates in Poland are result of wide distrust in pharmaceutical companies and vaccinations.

Health experts are stressing that seasonal influenza vaccine is especially important this year because reducing number of flu cases would help preserve medical resources for treating COVID-19 patients. y say that many of symptoms of influenza and COVID-19 are similar and it can be difficult at first to determine which infection is making someone ill.

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