Asked to comment on the latest bombshell report from La Verita, Zoran Zaev confirmed that the Government turned to a private company to facilitate the deal to purchase 200,000 Sinopharm vaccines. The Italian paper reports that the attempt to use a suspicious company in Hong Kong to purchase the vaccines ruined the deal and led the Chinese side to back out of it and return the advance payment Macedonia already made.

Zaev and Filipce wanted to insert a suspicious company in the vaccine contract with China and now the deal is out, La Verita reports

I absolutely deny having any bad intention or doing anything illegal. We were making all possible efforts, using all available channels to get vaccines, because our citizens expect them, Zaev said.

He added that after waiting for two weeks for the vaccines from Sinopharm, the Helathcare Ministry tried purchasing them from a private company, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry banned the deal. Macedonia has almost no vaccines at hand and the procurement of 200,000 doses from Sinopharm was supposed to be the first serious shipment to arrive to the country. But La Verita reports that the deal is now ruined because Zaev and his Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce tried using a dubious Hong Kong registered company as an intermediary, which the Chinese side did not approve.