Prime Minister Zoran Zaev denied media reports that members of the Government were secretly vaccinated – as was reported by the Albanian News1 site.
Curiously compared to other countries, no Government official in Macedonia has taken the vaccine from the small batches that were delivered so far, which is feeding into rumors that some of them were vaccinated in secret.
I responsibly claim that no minister, including the Healthcare Minister, have received the vaccine. We are all registered in the online system and are awaiting our turn in accordance with the mass vaccination plan, Zaev said. Earlier, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE called on Zaev to reveal which Government members have been vaccinated so far. Zaev also insisted that the vaccinated citizens have the right to privacy, which was seen as a move to provide some cover to ministers who may be concealing taking the vaccine.
Regarding the vaccine procurement process, which was badly marred by the major corruption scandal involving the expected Sinopharm contract, Zaev now said that Macedonia will purchase 500,000 doses from the Chinese Sinovac company. Chinese Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe was recently in Macedonia and the Zaev regime raised the issue of vaccine procurement with him. He added that the country is still expecting the 200,000 doses from Sinopharm, as well as 800,000 Pfizer doses and additional quantities of Astra Zeneca and Sputnik V. So far Macedonia has received donations from Serbia amounting to 8,000 Pfizer and 20,000 Sputnik vaccines, additional 6,000 Sputnik doses delivered by Russia and 24,000 Astra Zeneca delivered through the Covax mechanism.
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