North Macedonia will get the first doses of Pfizer vaccines by the end of March in accordance with the agreement reached with the company, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said Thursday.
“We will get the first 21,000 doses of vaccine, as it was agreed with the Pfizer company, in the first quarter of 2021, i.e., by the end of March. Additional large quantities of vaccine are set to arrive in the second quarter of the year,” Zaev told reporters after attending launch of the construction of Shtip-Ovche Pole transmission line.
“This is not about being unserious, but the only reason is the lack of vaccine production in appropriate quantities. That is the problem. We are a small country, and I want to assure our people that as a Government, as a Ministry of Health we have done more than enough considering that two million doses of vaccines will be needed to vaccinate one million people to achieve herd immunity,” Zaev said.
“We have ordered 800,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine, 833,000 doses through COVAX Facility, 400,000 doses from China and 200,000 doses of vaccines from Russia. We also have additional doses from the EU through the grant amounting to EUR 70 million for the Western Balkans as well as announced donations for the neighbours and thus reaching 2.5 million doses,” Zaev added.
He said that everyone in the country needs to get vaccinated, urging them to adhere to health safety measures adopted by the Ministry of Health and the Commission for Infectious Diseases, as it is the only way to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
