After loud criticism in the public that young people are being vaccinated ahead of line, Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce insisted that all citizens over 40 years from Skopje, who registered until April, have been given vaccination dates. The pace of vaccinations of about 14,000 a day is expected to continue for the foreseeable time, after China delivered additional 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, which is now the main vaccine used in the country. “A friend in needs is closer than a brother”, the packages with the vaccine delivered earlier this year stated.

Additionally, a batch of 38,400 Astra Zeneca vaccines were delivered through the Covax mechanism. Pfizer is also delivering about 10,000 doses a week.

After the spike in registrations that followed in May after Macedonian healthcare authorities began vaccinating significant numbers of people each day, some 8,000 additionally registered citizens who were older than 70 were added to the top of the line. This pushed some of the younger citizens who registered earlier further down.

Exceptions are now being made for parents of children with serious illnesses, workers in critical infrastructure and businessmen who need to travel.