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(Reuters/Yonhap News)

Despite a low rate of COVID-19 vaccination, Romania is looking to provide South Korea with doses of the Moderna vaccine in exchange for medical equipment.

According to Our World in Data, a statistics website set up by researchers from the University of Oxford, 26.23% of the Romanian population had been fully vaccinated as of Aug. 20. That's the lowest rate in the European Union and much lower than the EU average of 55.51%.

Romania began vaccinating its population in December 2020, which was early for the EU, but the pace of vaccination remains sluggish.

That has caused the Romanian government to donate or sell part of its vaccine supply to other countries.

Romania agreed to sell Denmark 1.17 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine on June 29, according to Reuters.

The Danish population has a high vaccination rate. As of Saturday, 69% of Danes had been fully vaccinated.

At the beginning of August, Romania sold 700,00 more doses of Pfizer to Ireland, where more than 65% of the population is fully vaccinated.

Incheon International Airport workers transport a shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine that arrived in South Korea on Monday at Incheon International Airport. (Yonhap News)

Romania Insider, an English-language media outlet, reported that the Romanian government has donated COVID-19 vaccines to Tunisia, Egypt, Albania, Vietnam, Moldova and Georgia.

Reuters reported that vaccine hesitancy is spreading in Romania because of distrust in the government and the proliferation of inaccurate information about the vaccines, causing supply to outstrip demand. Another factor is that much of the population lives in rural areas with less access to vaccines.

Romania hasn't been able to administer the vaccine supply that it secured early on through the EU. That puts it in the opposite position of South Korea, which failed to order vaccines early on. In Korea, the vaccine supply is still unable to keep up with demand, half a year since vaccinations began.

Analysts suggest that the contrasting circumstances in the two countries may have led them to discuss swapping COVID-19 vaccines and medical devices.

"South Korea built trust with Romania by providing equipment for fighting COVID-19, including test kits, in March 2020. We're currently discussing a swap of COVID-19 vaccines for medical equipment," Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Kang Do-tae said during a press conference on Sunday.

Kang added that the Moderna vaccine doses that are being discussed won't expire until November or later, leaving plenty of time to administer them. That contradicts some reports in the local media.

By Choi Ha-yan, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]