More than 150,000 people living in Belgium have registered for an earlier appointment to receive the booster dose of a coronavirus vaccine since the Qvax reserve list platform relaunched on Thursday.
After some technical issues, the platform was fully functional, allowing the central reserve list to officially open for people looking to book their appointment for an additional dose more quickly.
"Some 110,000 people have registered in Flanders and 31,000 in Wallonia, while the exact location of 9,000 registrations is not known," Joris Moonens, spokesperson for the Agency for Care and Health, told The Brussels Times.
Brussels uses its own BruVax platform. Some 60,000 appointments have been made for a booster vaccine dose, according to the head of the Brussels health inspectorate Inge Neven.
However, not all those who have registered will receive a booster dose more quickly: recipients must respect the necessary period since their last vaccine dose was given. This is checked before booster doses are administered.
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According to Moonens, some 46,000 registered people in Flanders, Wallonia and the German-speaking region are currently eligible for an accelerated injection that conforms to their mandatory waiting period.
People who received the one-dose Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine can get an invitation for a booster dose from two months after their last shot. Those who received both AstraZeneca doses can get one after four months, while those who were given the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have to wait six months.
As of Wednesday, almost 1.73 million people have received a booster dose of a coronavirus vaccine, including people from certain vulnerable groups and healthcare workers, to keep the protection against the coronavirus sufficiently high.
The majority of adults should have had the opportunity to get a booster dose by March 2022.
Leftover vaccines
During the first vaccination campaign, Qvax was the central reserve list on which people could register to be vaccinated earlier with leftover doses in vaccination centres at the end of the day. The system is available for all adults living in Flanders, Wallonia or the German-speaking community.
Authorities made the boosters available for all adult residents in the Capital Region at the end of November. A total of about 320,000 Brussels residents between the ages of 18 and 64 are eligible for a booster shot. Those who already received an official invitation letter for a booster dose do not need to register.
Find out how to register here.
