Kosovo with zero purchased vaccines, citizens rely on donations

English

Gazeta Express

12/05/2021 17:21

Kosovo Government has not managed to purchase not a single COVID-19 vaccine. With no signed agreement on providing vaccines, the country is heavily relying on donations for inoculation of the population. 100,620 doses of vaccines are expected to arrive by early June in Kosovo. Whereas many Kosovo Albanians are going to Serbia to be vaccinated.  

So far Kosovo has managed to vaccinate around 30,000 citizens, whereas the demand for vaccination is very high. For comparison Albania has vaccinated over 600 thousand citizens. Due to lack of contracts with producers of vaccines, citizens are under the mercy of donations from other countries. Some Kosovo Albanians have chosen Serbia to get the vaccine. Gazeta Express has reported Tuesday that many Kosovo Albanians, in addition to Kosovo Serbs, are being vaccinated in southern Serbia.

Kosovo so far has received 67.080 doses of vaccines of them 62,400 doses of Astra Zeneca the country received as a donation from the COVAX program, whereas 4,680 doses of BionTech Pfizer were donated by the European Union. The EU’s spokeswoman, Ana Pisonero told Gazeta Express that around 5,000 BionTech Pfizer vaccines which arrived in Kosovo last week have been financed by the European Union.

Starting from next week until August, according to the EU’s spokesperson Kosovo will get around 90,000 vaccines.

The UNICEF Program has announced Wednesday that 38,400 doses of AstraZeneca – Oxford COVID19 vaccines have arrived at Pristina Airport. “The vaccines are procured and delivered by UNICEF through the Gavi COVAX facility, which aims to ensure equal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines globally,” UNICEF said in a statement. Additional 100,60 doses of vaccines from COVAX program will arrive in Kosovo by early June. Kosovo was promised to get 360,000 vaccines from this program as a donation for vaccination of 20 percent of its population. But the other part, is expected to arrive in Kosovo by the end of this year. Kosovo will get as a donation another batch of 10,000 vaccines from Croatia.

Kosovo opposition parties are criticizing the Government for failing to purchase vaccines. Member of Parliament of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) in opposition, Bekim Haxhiu, told Gazeta Express that Kosovo at the bottom of the list in Europe when it comes to vaccination process. He said that the Government and the Ministry of health have neglected signing of a contract for purchasing vaccines. /GazetaExpress/