North Macedonia has started mass vaccination against COVID-19.
Vaccination started with 24,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which arrived in Skopje on Sunday through the World Health Organization (WHO) COVAX program.
Vaccination is taking place in Skopje and nine other cities across the country.
The first to be vaccinated are people over the age of 77, who are notified by their family doctor.
The Health Ministry initially announced that 4000 vaccines will be given to risk groups such as police, military, firefighters, journalists, kindergarten, teachers, bus drivers and court employees, but on Tuesday in the evening, the Minister of Health, Venko Filipce said that the vaccination with AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine will be administered only for people over the age of 60.
“After receiving two reports from Canada and Germany, we decided to follow their recommendations and to not vaccinate people under the age of 60 with AstraZeneca.
“Tomorrow we will start vaccinating elderly citizens, over the age of 77”, declared Filipçe.
Over 117 ,000 citizens interested in vaccination have applied through vakcinacija.mk. Health officials have announced that an additional 76,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine will arrive by the end of April.
