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Vaccines: Varhelyi in Kosovo and Albania on EU's supply

The visit of the European Commissioner to the region ends today

05 May, 18:59
(ANSA) - BRUSSELS, 05 MAG - The visit to the Balkans of the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, on the occasion of the delivery of the first Pfizer/BioNTech doses ended today. The EU funded the vaccines with the mediation of Austria thanks to an aid package, which is worth 70 million euros, adopted by the EU Commission last December.

Varhelyi, who began his mission to Serbia on Monday, visited today Albania and Kosovo, which will receive 145,000 and 95,000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines by August, respectively. These vaccines are in addition to those obtained through Covax, the World Health Organization (WHO) initiative to guarantee access to vaccines for middle and low-income countries of which the EU is one of the prominent donors.

The Balkan countries, except Serbia, mainly relied on the WHO mechanism, but the delivery delays prompted Brussels to seek a bridging solution to guarantee the vaccines necessary to protect health personnel and more fragile sections of the population.

(ANSA).

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