Serbia's top officials were successfully vaccinated with Sputnik V
Today, at the Torlak Institute of Virology in Belgrade, well-known Serbian politicians received the first dose of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine, the first delivery of which took place on December 30 last year.
The first to be vaccinated was the speaker of the country's parliament - the Assembly - Ivica Dacic, followed by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexander Vulin, as well as the Secretary of State for Health Mirsad Djerlek.
Afterwards, they turned to the large press that was waiting for the functionaries in front of the main building of the institute, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Parliament Speaker Dacic began his speech with a joke: “We all feel good, as you all can see. According to the order of the country's President Aleksandar Vucic, all government functionaries must be vaccinated with vaccines from different manufacturers in order to increase citizens' confidence in vaccination, since this issue has often been raised as a conspiracy theory, and this has had negative consequences for the population.
I want to emphasize that this is not about politics, there is no connection with it, we want to show here that we care about the health of the public.”
The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Alexander Vulin, emphasized that this issue was important for him personally.
“This is my step to show people that vaccination is not the only, but the most correct choice. We must trust our doctors and our healthcare system, who talk about the need for vaccination.
Serbia, thanks to Vučić, is one of the rare countries in which you can get a vaccine from all the world's manufacturers to choose from, in which you can be protected, and it is completely free. Countries much richer than us do not provide this to their population. Not because they can't, but because they don't want to.
I wanted to get the Russian vaccine, I believe in Russian medicine, and I believe that they do their job well, and I also believe that every vaccine approved by our doctors is good. But I fulfilled my small wish - to receive the Russian vaccine,” noted the Minister of Internal Affairs.
When asked by a PolitNavigator correspondent why Dacich decided to choose the Russian version of the drug, he answered jokingly:
“If we could get more vaccinations, we would do it. But you can only get one. The Pfizer vaccine was the first to receive a certificate in Serbia, followed by the Russian vaccine. Prime Minister Brnabic received the American vaccine, I received the Russian vaccine along with Minister Vulin and other functionaries. The President said that he would also receive a vaccine from one of these manufacturers, but did not say which one,” the speaker concluded.
“See you in 21 days, when we come for revaccination,” the speaker said in parting.
Let us remind you that the first batch of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine in the amount of 2400 doses arrived in Serbia at the end of the year. In total, the country will purchase about 2 million doses of this drug.
Also, 1 million 800 thousand doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be delivered to the country within a year.
Epidemiologists predict that routine vaccination of citizens will bear the first fruits by April in the form of the emergence of so-called herd immunity.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.