An April Fool’s Day Facebook post offering Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has landed a mayor of a Lithuanian town in hot water.
Andrius Bautronis, mayor of Raseiniai in central Lithuania, posted on Wednesday that his area “was lucky” to be the first to administer the shots.
Lithuanian officials have voiced their opposition against allowing the Russian vaccine to be used in the European Union. The bloc’s health authority, the European Medicine Agency, is now reviewing the Russian jab.
After the mayor’s post on Facebook, the Lithuanian Health Ministry dismissed the claims.
Read more: Referencing Soviet occupation, Lithuanian FM says country will not buy Russian vaccine
Read more: Lithuania draws red line on Russia's Sputnik V in European travel certificates
“It’s good to make jokes at the right place and at the right time,” Aistė Šuksta from the Health Ministry told LRT. “The society is really sensitive towards vaccination. People [in municipalities] who are aware of [this] should not make [such] jokes.”
Bautronis later deleted the post, saying that he had received questions from reporters and the public.
“I see that the society reacted too intensely” without having looked "at the calendar", he told LRT TV. “People flooded me with calls looking for the Sputnik vaccine in Raseiniai and Lithuania,” he added.
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