The Ministry of Health in Kosovo has announced that in a few days, negotiations will officially begin with the company Pfizer/BioNTech for a new contract for the supply of vaccines against the coronavirus.
Until the publication of this text, Pfizer/BionTech have not confirmed such a thing.
Officials at the Ministry of Health said that negotiations with the Pfizer company are not easy due to the many requests in the world for vaccines, but according to them, the ministry will make all the necessary preparations.
These negotiations will be led by a vaccine situation assessment and negotiation commission.
"Since we now have a recommendation from the National Institute of Public Health for giving the third dose, then the commission will start negotiations with the company with which we have a contract, but without excluding other producers in order to ensure even the third doses, which some countries have already started to apply", Faik Hoti, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, told Radio Free Europe.
In May, Kosovo signed a contract with the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer for the provision of over 1 million vaccines against the coronavirus. On average, about 55,000 doses of Pfizer arrive in Kosovo every week. So far, half of the vaccines from this contract have been administered.
Kosovo also receives vaccines through the COVAX mechanism and from other partners in the form of donations. Among them is the Oxford vaccine, AstraZeneca, but which the citizens of Kosovo are reluctant to take. As a result of this reluctance, Kosovo removed over 133,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from use due to expiration. These vaccines were a donation from Norway.
In the last seven days, Kosovo has registered 11,440 new cases and 170 victims.
Although from time to time, the citizens of Kosovo find it impossible to reserve the appointment for vaccination, the Ministry of Health said that Kosovo has enough vaccines. Officials of this institution have stated that from the beginning of next week, 465,000 Pfizer vaccines, a donation from the United States and 150,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from Germany, are expected to arrive. And by the end of September, Kosovo expects to have nearly one million vaccines available.
"In the following days and weeks, of course, the intensity of discussions about the third dose will increase at the level of experts, but also at the level of commitments to provide as many doses as possible", said Faik Hoti.
Until Thursday morning, 295,000 citizens were vaccinated in Kosovo with two doses of the vaccine. About 280,000 people have received the first dose. According to the Ministry of Health, 31 percent of the population of Kosovo was vaccinated against the coronavirus by the end of August.
Health experts: Equitable distribution of vaccines
Skender Syla from the World Health Organization in Bulgaria, told Radio Free Europe that for now, health mechanisms should increase the percentage of those vaccinated with the first and second doses against the coronavirus.
"Given that vaccination started in Kosovo much later than in other countries, the aim is to reach a percentage as high as possible. WHO recommends that there is an even distribution of vaccines. This is a pandemic and it should not be looked at only at the state level, there should be an equal approach to vaccines before even thinking about the third dose. "Absolutely we do not rule out the third dose," said Syla.
Meanwhile, Hana Xhemajli, specialist for global health policy research, told Radio Free Europe that the focus of the institutions should be to convince citizens to get vaccinated as much as possible.
Xhemajli said that the vaccines used in Kosovo are approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and according to her, citizens should not hesitate to get vaccinated if there are no Pfizer company vaccines.
"I understand the aspect of the ministry, which may start negotiations for the purchase of other vaccines from Pfizer, because the third doses, the US, Israel and other countries have decided to give them somewhere six to nine months after the second dose, which means that we can start looking at this third dose sometime in January or February of the next year, until May", said Xhemajli.
"We need another time to think about that process, because we have a great reluctance of citizens to take the AstraZeneca vaccine, this reluctance must be removed from everyone," she added.
On the other hand, infectious disease expert Shemsedin Dreshaj, member of the Commission for Health and Social Welfare in the Assembly of Kosovo, said that the provision of additional vaccines should be among the first priorities of the Ministry of Health, at a time when the epidemiological situation in Kosovo has worsened.
"Negotiations for the purchase of vaccines should be a priority of the country, a priority of the government and the ministry. I think that every hour delay is too late, not to mention the current situation we are in, where we record dozens of deaths and thousands of new cases per day, many active cases that are spreading the virus nationwide," Dreshaj said. which comes from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo.
Dreshaj said that in order to provide more vaccines, all institutional mechanisms should be used, but official and unofficial opportunities should also be looked at.
"There is much that can be done better and faster, so that citizens are vaccinated and protected," he said.
Officials of the Government of Kosovo have said that by the end of 2021, according to the state immunization plan, more than 60 percent of citizens will be vaccinated.
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