TIRANA, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Albania will receive 145,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine between May and August this year, Prime Minister Edi Rama announced on social media on Tuesday.
Under this scheme funded by the European Commission and shared with the facilitation of Austria, the Western Balkan region will receive a total of 651,000 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses.
In his message, Rama thanked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union's (EU) Neighborhood and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi and EU Ambassador to Tirana Luigi Soreca for their help and support.
On Monday, Albania's Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu said that so far 703,550 COVID-19 vaccine doses have arrived in the country.
The number of people vaccinated since the beginning of the vaccination campaign in January stood at 345,934 on Monday. Manastirliu did not specify the number of people who had received both vaccine doses.
On Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported 148 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country to 129,842, with 102,601 recoveries and 2,353 fatalities.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.
Meanwhile, 275 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 91 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Tuesday. Enditem
