Czech Republic to receive tens of thousands of Johnson & Johnson vaccines in April

The single-dose Johnson & Johnson anti-COVID-19 vaccine will be supplied to the EU from April 16 and the Czech Republic will receive tens of thousands of doses by the end of April, Health Minister Jan Blatný told press on Friday.

To date, the Czech Republic has used three types of anti-COVID-19 vaccines. Most of them have been from Pfizer/BioNTech, which have accounted for 1.26 million of the vaccine doses administered in the country, Blatný said.

Blatný said that three million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will arrive in the EU in April, 13 million in May, and 39 million in June.

The Czech Republic has ordered a total of two million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

"In April, [Johnson & Johnson] vaccines for tens of thousands of people will arrive in the Czech Republic. The vaccine will be administered by general practitioners and will be directly supplied to them," Blatný said.

In the Czech Republic, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be distributed by Avenier, which is also in charge of the distribution of the Moderna vaccine.

Avenier expects 180,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to arrive in the initial shipment, its executive director Jáchym Janošek has stated in a press release.

As for the Moderna vaccine, 139,200 doses have been supplied to the Czech Republic so far, and the distribution of another 90,000 are scheduled to come next week, Janošek wrote.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for the EU use last week.

In clinical studies, the vaccine has shown 67-percent effectiveness. Unlike other vaccines, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine only needs to be administered in a single dose.

To date, the Czech Republic has been using vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca, all two-dose vaccines. Nearly 1.3 vaccine doses have been administered, and roughly 340,00 people have received both doses.