COVID-19 vaccination in Romania started on 27 December 2020. It was announced that the process would be divided into three phases. Medical personnel would be vaccinated first (first phase), followed by the population at risk (second phase), and finally by the rest of the population (third phase). Vaccination was declared free and non-mandatory. As of March 2022, five types of vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax) were authorized to be used in Romania. This is the largest vaccination campaign in the modern history of Romania.
Former PNL Prime Minister and self-appointed coordinator of the vaccination campaign Florin Cîțu aimed to have 10.4 million people (or 70% of the country's population) vaccinated by the end of September 2021. However, by the end of September 2021, Romania had the second lowest vaccination rate in the European Union, 33%, just before Bulgaria, and sold part of its expiring vaccine stock to Denmark, Ireland, and South Korea. The low vaccination rate had exposed entrenched distrust in state institutions, misinformation campaigns, poor rural infrastructure, and weak vaccine education.
Background
Responsibility for COVID-19 vaccine deployment
The National Coordinating Committee for COVID-19 Vaccination Activities (; abbreviated CNCAV) is the inter-ministerial body responsible for developing the national vaccination strategy. It was established on 20 November 2020 by Prime Minister's decree and is under the direct subordination of the General Secretariat of the Government and the coordination of the Prime Minister. The first president of the committee is Valeriu Gheorghiță, doctor at the Central Military Hospital in Bucharest.
Romania heavily relied on its military and intelligence services to set up quickly the infrastructure needed to roll out the shots throughout the country. The Romanian Army and structures from the Ministry of Interior are involved in the distribution and transport of vaccines. The online platform used for vaccine registration is also administered by an agency with military status, the Special Telecommunication Service.
Vaccines on order
Romania has ordered 120 million doses of vaccine or 7.5 doses for each person who can be vaccinated. As of 10 February 2022, it received 31.8 million doses, of which it used only about 16 million. Amid disinterest in vaccination, Romania sold or donated almost 5 million doses to countries such as Argentina, Denmark, Egypt, Ireland, Moldova, Serbia, South Korea, and Ukraine.
Rollout schedule
On 26 December 2020, Ion Cantacuzino Institute in Bucharest received the first symbolic 10,000-dose batch of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The truck with the first doses of vaccine entered Romania at Nădlac customs the day before in the presence of Raed Arafat, head of the Department for Emergency Situations and Valeriu Gheorghiță, head of the National Coordinating Committee for COVID-19 Vaccination Activities. Vaccination began on 27 December in 10 infectious disease hospitals across the country, with Mihaela Anghel, a nurse at the Matei Balș National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Bucharest, being the first person vaccinated. Anghel was among the personnel that treated the country's first infected person on 27 February of the same year.
On 29 December 2020, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced that Romania would help Moldova with a donation of 200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine units in the future during his meeting with the Moldovan President Maia Sandu in the country as part of a collaboration project about the COVID-19 pandemic and other topics between the two countries. Iohannis himself was vaccinated on 15 January 2021. The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines destined to be sent to Moldova from Romania, composed of an amount of 20,000 of them, was approved by the Government of Romania on 24 February 2021. Moldova received 21,600 Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine doses on 27 February from Romania, which started being administered on 2 March. Moldova donated 1,810 of these units to the authorities of the unrecognized state of Transnistria on 5 March, which thanked the Romanian state for the help. Other donations from Romania to Moldova took place on 27 March (50,400 doses) and 7 May (100,800 doses).
The first 14,000-dose batch of the Moderna vaccine arrived in the country on 12 January 2021. The vaccine began to be administered on 4 February.