Covid vaccination to be done at more than 110 spots: Another half a million Sputnik V doses arrive

Photo: Tanjug/AP

As of today, vaccination against coronavirus will be done in more than 30 locations throughout Serbia, including in all clinical centers, general hospitals, and there will be over 110 vaccination spots in those institutions.

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State Secretary in the Ministry of Health Mirsad Djerlek said that all vaccines that have arrived in Serbia so far will be used up by the end of this week.

"Next Monday we expect a new contingent of Pfizer vaccines, so this month we should get about 80,000 Pfizer vaccines. We will receive large quantities of the Sputnik vaccine and the Chinese vaccine by the end of the month," said Djerlek.

He added that another 200,000 doses of Pfizer's vaccine will arrive in February, and that everything will be done to increase the pace of vaccination from week to week in order to vaccinate as many people as possible.

Djerlek said that since the beginning of immunization, on December 24, about 1,300 residents in gerontological centers received the vaccine, and that only one person has had side effects.

"The rest didn't. These are all at the level of some redness at the site of injection, mild pain, and it is extremely important that, ALIMS (Serbia's Drug Agency), what they promised and what they said, it is extremely important that both vaccines are safe," said Djerlek.

He pointed out that vaccines are free and that the state has done everything to procure large quantities.

Half a million doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine will arrive in Serbia by the end of this month.

As Novosti reports, that is the amount enough to vaccinate 250,000 people, which is sufficient to - along with the already agreed dynamics of delivery of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine, start mass vaccination against Covid 19. In addition, two more vaccines are expected in Serbia by the end of January - the Chinese one, and the one made jointly by AstraZeneca and Oxford.

Thus the total number of available doses of the four vaccines from different manufacturers, counting the 19,500 Pfizer/Biontech ones delivered on Monday, would "climb" to - one million this month.

Although they have already been tested and approved for use by our Agency for Drugs and Medical Devices (ALIMS), each new delivery of both Russian and American-German vaccines will be tested in the reference laboratory ALIMS before release, while the Chinese and AstraZeneca vaccine are yet to to send documentation, and then samples.

So far, it is only known that the delivery of 1.8 million doses has been agreed with Pfizer/Biontech by the end of the year... Negotiations are still under way with the other manufacturers on how many doses from their production plants Serbia can count on this year. All vaccines will be free of charge for citizens, while immunization is voluntary.

(Telegraf.rs)