500,000 Chinese vaccines coming tomorrow, 88,000 Pfizer's by the end of February, AstraZeneca soon

500,000 more Chinese vaccines will arrive in Serbia tomorrow, 88,000 additional Pfizer vaccines will be here by the end of February, while those produced by AstraZeneca will arrive soon, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has announced, after taking part in a video summit organized by China and 17 countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

"What is the most important news is how and in what way we are acquiring the vaccines, because they represent life today. By the end of February, 88,000 Pfizer vaccines will arrive in Serbia, and new doses of Chinese vaccines will arrive tomorrow," the president said.

He said that 50,000 Russian vaccines arrived early this morning, while another 15,000 Pfizer vaccines will arrive in 15 days, to be used for revaccination, in addition to 150,000 AstraZeneca-produced doses by February 20.

He also thanked friends from Britain and India with whom the AstraZenec vaccine deal was negotiated, and these are not the shipments Serbia will definitely get through Covax.

"Another 500,000 Chinese vaccines will arrive tomorrow afternoon, and by the end of the month we will have a total of 2 million doses of vaccines to be used to vaccinate a million citizens," the president said after the summit.

He stressed that hard work always pays off and thanked the citizens who had faith in the state leadership.

"We are continuing with mass vaccination and proceeding with further mass revaccination which guarantees that those who received a dose will not get infected," said Vucic and added that many EU officials have praised the way Serbia has organized vaccination of its citizens, showing to what degree the country is progressing.

He says that had Serbia not received any vaccines from the Covax program and if these doses that we have had not arrived, there would have been 1,000 more dead.

The state's fight against organized crime

"We have a very difficult job ahead of us, some police officers have been detained because they would be sent to search a certain location without knowing that the BIA had already installed wiretapping devices there, to monitor criminal activity. Then, in that location, they see a gun, but agree to say they did not see it. That is why police officers have been arrested," said Vucic.

Extensive cooperation in several areas

This summit is a meeting of leaders initiated by China in 2012, in order to improve Beijing's business and investment ties with this part of Europe, as part of the "new Chinese Silk Road," i.e., the Belt and Road initiative.

Areas of cooperation between the countries taking part are trade and investments, agriculture, science and technology, health, culture. Belgrade was the host of the annual summit in 2015.

Last year, because of the pandemic, the summit was canceled, and according to Chinese President Xi Jinping, countries have now entered a new phase of responding to the Covid crisis and are facing great challenges in economic recovery and development.

A need has emerged for China and the countries in this part of Europe to strengthen communication, achieve consensus and determine the course of future cooperation to support economic and social recovery and development in the post-Covid era, the Chinese president said in a  message sent to Aleksandar Vucic, inviting him to take part in the meeting.

(Telegraf.rs)