Health Minister Daniels Pavļuts said that Janssen is experiencing production and supply difficulty, so only 13% of the ordered doses have currently been delivered to Latvia. Thus, if the company later delivered vaccines, it would be too much.
The decision had to be taken as a matter of urgency since the information had to be provided to the Procurement Secretariat of the European Commission.
Pavļuts said that there is no shortage of other vaccines for Latvia.
The government also on Tuesday decided to donate 560,000 AstraZeneca and up to 840,000 Pfizer-produced vaccines that will expire by the end of October.