Balkans neglected in the vaccination process

While immunization continues across the European Union, where thousands of citizens received the coronavirus vaccine last month, one part of the continent feels isolated and abandoned.

The Associated Press (AP) writes that the countries of the Balkans are struggling to get access to vaccines against covid-19 from several companies and programs, but that most in the southeastern periphery of Europe are still waiting for the first vaccines.

What is certain, AP points out, is that Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, where about 20 million people live, will lag far behind the 27 EU members and Britain in their efforts to acquire herd immunity by rapidly vaccinating large numbers. people.

Epidemiologist Dragan Danilovski from North Macedonia compared the current situation with vaccines in the Western Balkans to the inequalities during the sinking of the "Titanic" in 1911.

"The rich grabbed all the available lifeboats and left behind those who were less fortunate," Danilovski told TV 24.

AP reminds that many Balkan countries are pinning their hopes on "Covax", the vaccine supply mechanism established by the World Health Organization and global humanitarian groups. Kovacs has secured agreements for several vaccines, but so far these will only cover doses to immunize 20 percent of a given country's population.

"I felt like all my hopes for a return to normal life had sunk," said Belma Đonko (50) from Sarajevo, describing her disappointment when she heard that thousands of people in the EU had received the first doses of vaccines.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has reserved vaccines through "Kovaks", and the start of immunization is expected only in April.

"In the meantime, I still have to deprive the 83-year-old father of the company and love of his grandchildren," Djonko told AP.

Serbia is the only country in the Western Balkans that started immunization after receiving deliveries of vaccines from the company "Pfizer-Biontek" and the Russian "Sputnik V". However, Serbia does not yet have enough doses to start mass vaccination. The European Commission recently agreed on a 70 million euro package to help Balkan countries gain access to vaccines, in addition to the 500 million euro contribution the bloc made to the "Kovaks" program.

"During the pandemic, the EU showed that we treat the Western Balkans as a privileged partner," said EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelji.

EC chief Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU will have more vaccines than its citizens need in 2021 and hinted that the bloc could send excess supplies to the Western Balkans and African countries.

However, as AP points out, the prevailing impression in the Balkans is that the bloc has once again failed the region.

"Either show us that you care about us, or don't be surprised if one of us accepts invitations from Russians or Chinese who travel around the world with their pockets full of vaccines," says Albanian political analyst Skender Minjozi.

The American agency states that local pro-Russian politicians are taking advantage of the "obvious lack of solidarity of the West" to present that the EU is focused solely on profit.

"I will accept the Russian one, I believe in it, I don't believe in these commercial stories coming from the West," said the Serbian member of the BiH Presidency, Milorad Dodik, before he was hospitalized due to the coronavirus.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama demanded an apology from the Russian embassy after it published a message on social media that Moscow is ready to immediately send the "Sputnik V" vaccine to Albania, even though it is not approved in the EU.

"As a person I felt outraged, as a European I felt ashamed, and as the Prime Minister of Albania I was more motivated than ever to not allow Albanians to be excluded from the possibility of being protected at the same time as other Europeans, Rama said, announcing the contract for the purchase of 500.000 doses of the vaccine " Pfizer-Biontek”.