"British strain of coronavirus has arrived to Serbia; I'll receive a Chinese vaccine"

BELGRADE -- Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says Serbia has ordered eight million vaccines, but 1.500.000 was delivered.

"British strain of coronavirus has arrived to Serbia; I'll receive a Chinese vaccine"

BELGRADE -- Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says Serbia has ordered eight million vaccines, but 1.500.000 was delivered.

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Printskrin: TV Prva

He told Prva TV that he had talked to his friends worldwide in order to provide more vaccines.

"Today, it is harder to get a vaccine than a nuclear weapon," he said.

Vučić said that he expected 50.000 people to be vaccinated today.

"We are ninth in the world, I think we can be 6th or 9th in the next 3 days," he said.

He added that Serbia has pursued a smart and responsible policy on the issue of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We would have lost thousands of lives if we had not done so," he said.

He said that Serbia paid much less for Chinese vaccines than are sold in the world.

"I wrote a letter to the President of China Xi to lower the price for Serbia. That price has been dramatically lowered," he said.

Vučić says that he was "infuriated" by the fact that he read reports on procurement requests at the end of August, where Western countries ordered 5 or 6 times more vaccines than they have inhabitants.

"It's as if they wanted to vaccinate both puppies and kittens. I wanted to cry because it means there will be nothing left for us. And then they tell us to go to COVAX," he said. He added that Serbia received 0 vaccines from that program, as well as all countries in the region, because there is a problem with the distribution of vaccines to EU countries through that program. "We got 0 vaccines, I guess we will get something one day. And without the COVAX program, we got 1.500.000 vaccines and we will provide more," he said.

Vučić announced that Serbia also wants AstraZeneca's vaccine and that it will do its best to get it.

"Everyone who has received the vaccine will also receive the revaccination, the same one they received. We are a serious country," he said.

He also praised the information system that deals with vaccination, and that it should be known who was vaccinated where and with which vaccine, as well as when the term for revaccination is. "We ordered 8 million vaccines, but there are none. We ordered them, it's like in the war, you order something, but there aren't any," he said.

Speaking about the issue of procurement of vaccines, Vučić said: "War is being waged in the true sense of the word, this is a question of the survival of economy." He mentioned that he will improve the balance of Serbia in terms of the number of vaccines next week.

He reminded that Serbia managed to build two COVID hospitals in record time, and that in the midst of the epidemic, a free hospital bed could not be found in Belgrade.

Since 2012, Serbia has surpassed 14 EU countries in the quality of health care, President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, said. Vučić said on Prva that we were the last on the list in 2012, while today we overtook as many as 14 EU countries. "We are better than Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Ireland, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta, Lithuania, Greece, Latvia, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and Romania," Vucic said.

"The first in terms of the number of vaccinated is Nis, Kikinda, Krusevac, while Belgrade is only 5th or 6th. There are more men than women who get vaccinated", Vucic said.