EU donates vaccines, mass immunization starts

North Macedonia started its mass coronavirus vaccination campaign on Tuesday as the European Union delivered thousands of doses to the small Balkan country. The nation has struggled with supply shortages. Only about 4% of the 2.1 million population has received a first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.

The delivery is part of a batch of 120,000 the 27-nation bloc will donate to the country by the end of August. The vaccines are funded from the 70 million euros package adopted by the European Commission in December to help cover the cost of vaccines. North Macedonia started its vaccination drive on Tuesday with 200,000 doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine.