“Vaccination at UCSP Gouveia was suspended by the coordination of the vaccine task-force to verify compliance with the rules and procedures in force. This decision stems from an alleged failure in the cold chain”, said the task force led by Gouveia e Melo.

The task force stressed that it is not “expected that this incident will have an effect on the health of users”, taking into account “the characteristics of the vaccines against Covid-19”.

Despite this caveat, the 'task-force' said that those vaccinated between 2 and 4 September "will be contacted by the health authorities, in the coming days, in order to monitor the effectiveness of the vaccines".

They added that Infarmed, the National Authority for Medicines and Health Products, is monitoring the situation.

“In the event of any suspicion of adverse reaction, it must be communicated through the RAM Portal (https://www.infarmed.pt/web/infarmed/submissaoram)”, reinforced the task-force.

At the time of going to press, scheduled appointments for this vaccination centre were being rescheduled for other centres in the vicinity and “an investigation of the facts will be requested from the General Inspection of Health Activities”.