While the majority of countries in Central and Southeast Europe have brokered deals to obtain Western-manufactured COVID-19 vaccines, Turkey, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are keeping their options open and also obtaining Chinese and Russian vaccines – despite concerns about their reliability.
Some health experts have warned that the effectiveness of these vaccines is still not fully researched, and note that their delivery dates are also still uncertain.
“Unfortunately, Turkey could not purchase a vaccine in which all three phases of research had been completed. Furthermore, there are no plans to bring [Western] Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines [to Turkey],” Emrah Altindis, a Turkish professor of Biology at Boston College, wrote on Twitter.
Turkey said earlier that it would purchase 50 million doses of China’s CoronaVac vaccine, which is still in third of phase of research. After various delays, only 3 million doses arrived on December 31. So far, Turkey has vaccinated 1.2 million of its more than 82 million citizens.
Note EU-Digest: At a press conference in Beijing a state taskforce announced the vaccine had exceeded World Health Organization standards and would help establish effective immunity in China.
Health officials said vulnerable groups would be prioritised ahead of the general population. Key groups have already been receiving vaccines under emergency approvals, including about a million receiving the Sinopharm vaccine.
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Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia and Hungary Put Trust in Russian, Chinese Vaccines | Balkan Insight
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