Prime Minister Edi Rama has travelled to the United States to meet “face to face” with COVID-19 vaccine producers and ensure it “arrives” in Albania as soon as possible.
Rama announced the news on Saturday, ensuring everyone that the fight against the virus is his government’s priority and that he will make the utmost efforts for the vaccine “to start coming” to Albania.
“Providing the vaccine as soon as possible is a priority of our fight against the Invisible Enemy, and we will not leave a stone unturned for the vaccine to start coming to Albania as soon as possible! The face-to-face contact with the vaccine producers serves this purpose. On the way to the United States,” he tweeted on Saturday.
Albania is part of the Gavi vaccine alliance, an alliance of 80 countries, including the EU member states, that have allied to provide their citizens with the fastest secure way to procure the vaccine. The government has already paid the required amount of money, as announced by Rama in parliament. Deputy Prime Minister Erion Braçe clarified that they paid $ 3.9 million for the Moderna vaccine.
Rama’s tweet does not clarify whether his face-to-face meetings with vaccine producers in the US aim at accelerating the vaccine delivery to the Gavi Alliance as a whole, lobbying to prioritize Albania in this alliance, securing vaccines from other producers, or other.
The government has reported 889 deaths of people infected with Covid-19, and over 42 thousand infections in a population of 2.8 million. The death toll and new cases have accelerated significantly this fall, comprising for 56 percent of the death toll and 67 percent of the total cases only in the last two months.
