May the 10th, 2021 - Those of us who live in the City of Zagreb have obviously not been too fussed by the often less than positive reports about AstraZeneca side effects, be they exaggerated or not, as the Zagreb AstraZeneca doses are used up on residents.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, more of Zagreb's citizens were vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine than with Pfizer according to the director of the Dr. Andrija Stampar Institute, Zvonimir Sostar, as Zagreb AstraZeneca vaccines dry up. At the level of the whole of the Republic of Croatia, things are the other way around. Although Croatia ordered far more AstraZeneca vaccines, much more money was spent on Pfizer. More than 600,000 doses of Pfizer were used, nearly 300,000 AstraZeneca vaccines were administered, with the rest being Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

A total of 1.1 million doses were used, of which the first dose was received by 617,000 people, with 250,000 receiving both doses. This means that in the whole of Croatia, only about five percent of the population has been immunised so far, and another 344,494 people have officially been recorded as having become unwell with the novel coronavirus, which is almost nine percent of the population, 24sata writes. There hasn't yet been any sort of officiall made study that says how many people have actually acquired immunity to the virus by contracting it and recovering, but that number is certainly higher than the official one would lead us to believe.

Larger quantities of vaccines should arrive in Croatia this week than were arriving before, and the government's plan is that at least 55 percent of the adult population will be vaccinated by the time summer rolls around. A new daily "record" of vaccination was set on Saturday - with more than 53,000 people getting the vaccine. According to Sostar, Zagreb itself has the capacity to vaccinate 11,000 people a day - at the Zagreb Fair (Zagrebacki Velesajam) and in three other similar halls, which will be opened over the coming days precisely for this purpose. Zagreb is home to almost 30 percent of the vaccinated population of the entire country, which is currently the highest in Croatia, Sostar added.

In the 70,000 AstraZeneca doses consumed, he said, there were no serious side effects reported. So far, 2982 reports of suspected side effects of various coronavirus vaccines have been received throughout Croatia, of which 1452 refer to Pfizer, 1292 refer to AstraZeneca, and 235 refer to Moderna. 19 percent of these reports were considered serious, but there have been no confirmed deaths due to any of the coronavirus vaccines currently in use.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centres across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.

April the 25th, 2021 - As we previously reported, the once popular cijepi se vaccination platform has completely failed and will no longer be an option for those wanting to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. What are the next steps for the Zagreb vaccination process?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, as Zvonimir Sostar, the head of the Dr. Andrija Stampar Institute recently confirmed to Index, vaccination through the Cijepi se system has been stopped by the City of Zagreb and the capital no longer intends to continue it in future through the platform.

"That's right, only those who have applied through their family doctors are being vaccinated. We're no longer vaccinating people through the Cijepi se platform at all,'' said Sostar yesterday morning. He also explained the reasons behind such a decision.

"When we had a meeting with the IT specialists, we asked them if the platform is working properly anywhere, in any county. The answer was that no, it wasn't working at all. Then we decided entirely on the model that health centres actually carry out the vaccinations, and that we be the coordinators and the logistics behind that. Family doctors refer people, and the order goes through. This way of doing it is successful and it works extraordinarily well, the response is very good,'' said Sostar of the Zagreb vaccination plan going forward.

“We're going to continue as we have done so far, through people's general practitioners. Until further notice, we're not going to be taking vaccine registrations through the Cijepi se platform,''

He warned of a major technical problem with the website, which is one of the key reasons why they gave up using the platform. "The platform now only shows the initials, which creates big problems for us. You can't check the vaccination status with the initials, we have to do the checks, all of which requires extra time,'' according to Sostar.

Sostar revealed plans for the Zagreb vaccination process in the weeks ahead.

"We plan to vaccinate people next week as well as this week, which means that there aren't going to be any vaccinations on Monday mornings and on Friday afternoons. The main reason is that we still don’t have enough vaccines to vaccinate people for hours on end. But that week after the next we plan to provide vaccinations on both Monday morning and on Friday night, as well as on Saturday, at least in the mornings.

As of that week, we estimate that we'll vaccinate about 6,500 people a day. The news is that we're introducing three additional teams at the Zagreb Fair. We're going to vaccinate with AstraZeneca on Monday and Tuesday, and since we should receive 18,000 doses of Pfizer on Monday, that should be enough for us to start vaccinating with Pfizer on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Next week, we should receive 3,500 doses of Moderna and 1,350 doses of Johnson & Johnson,'' Sostar told Index.

For more on coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centres across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section.