Bloomberg – Thousands came to Serbia to get a free vaccine

Bloomberg – Thousands came to Serbia to get a free vaccine

A number of international media reported last weekend that Serbia had vaccinated more than 20,000 foreigners, among them, the American economic site Bloomberg.

The text praising our country says that thousands of people from all over the Balkans traveled to Serbia this weekend for the first dose of the Coronavirus vaccine, due to lack of vaccines in their home countries.

Bloomberg points out that some 22,000 people traveled to Serbia on Saturday and Sunday, the nation with the fastest vaccination campaign in continental Europe. Most of the visitors received the AstraZeneca vaccine after receiving a choice of Western-made vaccines, so they can more easily qualify for future vaccine passports.

This renowned economic site points out that about 8,500 doses were given to entrepreneurs from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania to help local and regional companies stay afloat the pandemic, said Marko Cadez, president of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.

"It is of vital importance that we try to save our partners - we are all connected in this region," Mr. Cadez told Bloomberg in a telephone conversation on Monday.

"All our companies have very interconnected supply chains. They really depend a lot on each other. You can't continue to produce anything if your partners have to close because of infection," he said.

Bloomberg also states that Serbia imported more than 2.8 million vaccines for its seven million citizens after Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic negotiated direct deals with several manufacturers, including China's Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Russian vaccine manufacturers. The government also sent several thousand vaccines to neighbors as a donation earlier this year.

"We cannot count on being successful if people in the region are not vaccinated. We are not an island," said Vucic, who, Bloomberg recalls, criticized the European Union for the slow distribution of vaccines.

The paper states that the vaccination of business people and their employees from neighboring countries will continue in the coming days, depending on the availability of vaccines and infrastructure, Mr. Cadez said.

Finally, at the end of the text, Bloomberg points out that more than 1.4 million Serbs were vaccinated, including 920,000 who received both doses. The pace may accelerate if the government manages to start local production of Chinese and Russian vaccines as planned earlier.

Although, as reported by the American website, the Serbian offer mainly referred to its five neighboring countries also striving to join the European Union, although some visitors also traveled from EU members, Croatia and Slovenia.

"As a healthy person in my 50s, I estimated that my turn to get vaccinated at home will probably be around fall," said Ms. Zinka Bardic from Zagreb, after she went to Serbia to receive the vaccine, concludes Bloomberg.