The first 1170 COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer have arrived in Albanian on Monday evening following an agreement with the Albanian government announced on January 1.
Prime Minister Edi Rama and two ministers personally went to the Tirana airport to receive the vaccines.
Albania was expecting more than 10,000 doses in the third week of January but received only about 10 percent of the order.
Rama highlighted that Albania and Serbia are the only countries in the region to have started vaccination, and that about 40,000 more doses he had promised will arrive in February. The government is close to signing another agreement with AstraZeneca, he said.
He ruled out purchasing vaccines produced in Russia and China, as long as the European Union doesn’t give them green light.
Meanwhile, the elderly will start getting the first shots during this month.
On January 1, the Albanian government announced it had signed a contract with Pfizer for 500,000 vaccines. A vaccination campaign was launched on January 11 using 975 vaccine doses received from an undisclosed donor country.
