The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) announced on Friday that the former minister of health Ioana Mihaila is being prosecuted for abuse of office, with particularly serious consequences, in the case on the acquisition of vaccines against COVID-19.
The announcement comes after Ioana Mihaila was at the DNA headquarters on Friday where the accusations were presented to her.
Former prime minister Florin Citu, as well as former minister of health Vlad Voiculescu, are also being investigated in the case.
The DNA says that Ioana Mihaila, as minister of health, in violation of the legal provisions and in the absence of any documents/analyses attesting to the necessity of the purchase, allegedly initiated a memorandum approved on May 13, 2021 by Florin Vasile Citu, as prime minister of the Government of Romania, which allegedly resulted in the transaction and ordering the payment of an additional quantity of 34,099,623 doses of Pfizer vaccine.
"These actions allegedly took place under the conditions in which the suspect knew that the number of people eligible for vaccination communicated by the Romanian state to the European Commission was 10.7 million and that the vaccine doses contracted before January 1, 2021 (37,588, 366 doses) would have been enough to vaccinate more than 23 million people", the DNA release states.