Vaccination of Elderly Starts in Albania; PM Eyes May as Deadline to Finish That Process

Half a million of Albanians will be vaccinated within May this year in this Balkan country which started in mid- January the drive to find supplies of vaccines in the circumstances of shortages and unkept promises by the EU and vaccine producing companies.

This is the news given by PM Edi Rama amidst pensioners being vaccinated at the main square of capital Tirana on Sunday telling them this is my most beautiful political day.

A compound of tents has been erected in downtown Tirana where the vaccination process has started for the elderly of over 70 years.

“Today is one of the most beautiful days of my political life. Perhaps the most beautiful one. It is much more than every day of every election victory. Today the liberation from anxiety of the souls of thousands of grandparents has begun. It is a liberation because of the great danger that threatens them in this accursed time when the world faces the invisible enemy, which has forced them to shut themselves inside,” he said in another meeting at Kombinat neighborhood in Tirana giving the certificates to inhabitants of reconstructed houses destroyed by the earthquake of last November 2019.

“Without politics, the EU wall would not have cracked. This is the reason why politics is necessary,” Rama said.

Albania last Thursday received 192,000 doses of the Chinese Sinovac coronavirus vaccine, the first batch of 1 million secured through a deal agreed in Turkey.

“We have secured one million vaccines,” Prime Minister Edi Rama wrote on his social media. Rama said Albania signed a contract for an initial 500,000 doses of Sinovac shots, which should arrive within 60 days, and planned to inoculate 500,000 people by June. It would then decide on additional purchases of another half million vaccine doses, he added.