Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce dismissed the option of having citizens choose the coronavirus vaccine they will receive. This was raised as one possibility to improve interest in vaccination, amid reports that only about half of those who registered want to actually take the vaccine.

So far we will not allow a choice of vaccines. All vaccines are safe and there are no counter-indications, except in the Astra Zeneca vaccine which is given only to people over 60, Filipce said.

The Macedonian public healthcare system doesn’t even have much of an offer – the bulk of the planned mass vaccination push will be done with Sinopharm vaccines, while smaller quantities of Sputnik, Astra Zeneca and Pfizer are also available. Filipce failed to provide a significant quantity of vaccines sooner, apparently due to corruption on his part.

This postponed the vaccination process and made the major spike that started in March the worst so far. But now the numbers of infections and deaths are dropping, and with them – the interest in vaccination.