Health Minister Alexandru Rafila said Friday night on Digi 24 that according to the contracts awarded by the European Commission, Romania should receive another 19 million doses of the vaccine against COVID this year, showing that he is looking forward with “moderate optimism” to the negotiations between the Commission and the producers, reports News.ro.

Oleksandr RafilaPhoto: AGERPRES

Rafila believes that more important than money in the negotiations and their outcome is that what happens does not jeopardize the idea of ​​vaccines and vaccinations.

Alexandra Rafila is criticizing her predecessor, Ioana Mykhailo, saying she “sought to think about preventing the waste of public funds” when she approved the purchase of COVID vaccines.

“We are in a difficult situation, I must admit it. (…) In May 2021, the Romanian government, under the signature of Ms. Mihail and the then Prime Minister, Mr. Kitsu, committed to purchase 39 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer for a value of almost 800 million euros. This is the situation I found in the Ministry of Health, and it is attached to another similar order issued two months before the previous one of Ms. Mihailo. (…) I don’t think that the reason for the lack of use of vaccines at the moment is the Ministry of Health or the policies that we have promoted,” Alexandrou Rafila said on Digi 24 on Friday night.

According to him, this year Romania should purchase more than 19 million doses.

“My and our position during discussions with the European Commission was clear: we cannot buy hundreds of millions of euros worth of products that we are going to throw away, because there is no interest in them. We have to find a solution, of course, the solution is always through negotiations. At the moment, negotiations are underway between the signatories of the contract, that is, the European Commission, not Romania (…) I am waiting to see how it will be resolved, what the progress will be, this is a discussion with some confidentiality, given that the initial contracts were confidential,” he added Minister of Health.