The consignment, made up of 1,000 doses, adds to those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech which have already arrived in the country, and follow authorization from the European Commission given to Moderna earlier in the week.

Estonia's coronavirus vaccination program is part of the pan-EU procurement process which will also include doses from Astra Zeneca, should the latter get commission authorization.

The time-scale for vaccinations from all three firms is still up in the air, the Ministry of Social Affair says; all hospital staff and family doctors were scheduled to be vaccinated this week, but this may not now happen.

This will have a knock-on effect on other at-risk groups, ERR's online news in Estonian reports, as nursing home residents, for instance, will not start to receive their inoculations until all front-line health workers have had theirs. This will also be followed by other key workers including first responders, the police and others.

The ministry says when it has more information from both Pfizer and Moderna about delivery schedules, it will be able to publish its revised vaccination plan, but estimates that completion of vaccination for front-line workers will realistically happen in the spring, meaning inoculations will be available to the general populace some time after that.

The second consignment of 9,750 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine arrived with the Health Board on Monday.

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