DISINFO: Moldovan doctors await Sputnik V, refusing to get vaccinated with AstraZeneca
SUMMARY
Moldovan doctors are waiting for Sputnik V, refusing the Romanian AstraZeneca. Specialists in the field do not trust the Romanian AstraZeneca and are waiting for the Russian Sputnik V to arrive in the republic.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative about vaccination, presenting the vaccines approved by WHO as not so efficient as Russian Sputnik V. See here a similar case claiming that Moldovan doctors refuse to be vaccinated, in general, against COVID-19.
The claim comes as two groups of doctors from the Gagauz autonomy of the Republic of Moldova asked the Ministry of Health not to send them AstraZeneca vaccines, donated by Romania, as there are no people willing to be vaccinated. The text quotes the head of the hospital in Ceadir-Lunga with the statement: “Our team agrees to be vaccinated. But they want either Pfizer or Sputnik V.”
Respectively, the statement that Moldovan doctors are waiting for the Sputnik V vaccine is disinforming.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, from the first day of the vaccination campaign, March 2, 2021, and until March 5, 2021, 3 849 medical workers were vaccinated. In the Republic of Moldova, only the AstraZeneca vaccine is used so far, as the country's authorities have so far been able to acquire only this vaccine - 21,600 doses of vaccine were donated to Moldova by Romania, and another 14,400 doses were delivered to Moldova through the COVAX programme.
The Ministry of Health announced that it allows the use on the territory of the Republic of Moldova of other vaccines authorised in the countries of origin and on the WHO evaluation list. Among them is also the Sputnik V, but so far this vaccine has not been imported in the Republic of Moldova.