The Minister of Health of Kosovo Arben Vitia declared today that Kosovo has rejected for the moment Albania’s offer to vaccinate the teachers of Kosovo, since there are no longer Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines available in Albania, but only Sinovac vaccines. “In Kosovo, even if we wanted to, the laws forbid us to import products that are not approved by the European Medicines Agency, therefore we did not find it reasonable for our teachers to be vaccinated with vaccines that we cannot guarantee in the end,” said Minister Vitia. According to Vitia, the Ministry of Health of Albania confirmed that once the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines will be available again in Albania, the teachers from Kosovo will be invited to be part of the vaccination process.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Kurti, also present in the conference with the Minister of Health of Kosovo, said that providing vaccines for Kosovo remains a delicate topic. “We must keep in mind that the Republic of Kosovo, since it is not recognized by few countries in the world, among which the two great powers which are also members of the Security Council, does not have the convenience of receiving vaccines from everywhere,” declared Kurti.
Kosovo so far has received only 24 thousands doses of AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX mechanism. The government announced today that they are expecting other doses of vaccine to arrive soon in the country. During the mutual conference between Kurti and Vitia further measures against the spread of COVID-19 were introduced, following the growing number of deaths and hospitalization in the last weeks. The curfew in place in Kosovo from the 7th of April to the 18th of April will be from 22:00 to 05:00.
