After failing to secure even token doses of the Pfizer or Astra-Zeneca vaccines, Macedonian Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce announced that the Government is now turning to China.

With the help of the Chinese Embassy in our country we have already made contact with their vaccine manufacturers. We are awaiting details about the contract, pricing and delivery. I expect we will have the details by the end of the week. I would not like to talk about deadlines now but the essence is that the manufacturers who were first on the market, like Pfizer, have capacity problems, Filipce said.

All neighboring countries, except Kosovo, have begun to vaccinate their most critical categories of citizens, but Macedonia still doesn’t have a single dose. Even promised donations from Bulgaria and Serbia failed to materialize. Filipce also announced that he refused an offer from Russia, which was interested to sell the Sputnik vaccine.

Filipce assured the public that the Chinese vaccine is safe and that Macedonian healthcare authorities are able to examine their clinical studies and approve it locally, even though it is not yet approve at the broader European level. “We analyze every vaccine on the market and ther eis no administrative obstacle to do so here, and there should be no concern about the quality”, Filipce added.