SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) – Thousands of people across the European Union began rolling up their sleeves last month to get a shot at coronavirus vaccination, leaving one corner of the continent feeling isolated and deserted: the Balkans.
Balkan countries have struggled to access COVID-19 vaccines from various companies and programs, but most countries in the south-eastern edge of Europe are still waiting for their first vaccines to arrive, without a fixed timeline for launching their national vaccinations.
What is already clear is that Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Serbia – home to some 20 million people – will lag far behind the 27 EU and UK countries in their efforts to achieve herd immunity. by inoculating a large number of them rapidly. people.
Northern Macedonian epidemiologist Dragan Danilovski compares the current vaccination situation in the Western Balkans to the inequalities seen during the sinking of the Titanic in 1911.
“The rich have seized all the available lifeboats and left the underprivileged behind,” Danilovski told TV 24.
Such sentiments as the world faces its most serious health crisis in a century have taken hold in the Western Balkans – a term used to identify the Balkan countries that want to join but are still not part of it. the EU does not. It is actively fueled by pro-Russian politicians in a region sandwiched between the Western and Russian spheres of influence.
“I felt as if the bottom was falling out of my hope of a return to a normal life,” said Belma Djonko, 50, in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, describing the emotional downturn to hear thousands of doctors, nurses and the elderly across the EU have received the first doses of a vaccine developed by US drugmaker Pfizer and German BioNTech while her war-torn country awaits.
Many countries in the Balkans are pinning their hopes on COVAX, a global vaccine procurement agency set up by the World Health Organization and global charities to address the growing inequality in the distribution of vaccines. COVAX has obtained deals for several promising COVID-19 vaccines, but for now it will only cover doses to vaccinate 20% of the population in a country.
In addition to other politically unstable post-communist Balkan countries that have long had their desire to join the EU but still do not meet the conditions to achieve the goal, Bosnia has reserved vaccines through COVAX and expects its first doses early to start receiving in April.
It looks like an eternity from now on.
“Meanwhile, I must continue to deprive my 83-year-old father of the company and the love for his grandchildren,” Djonko said, referring to the low-tech but heartbreaking defense against the virus, and elderly people isolated from possible sources of infection.
Serbia is the only Western Balkan country to have received vaccine shots so far, receiving deliveries of Pfizer-BioNTech and the Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine. However, Serbia does not have enough doses to start mass vaccinations, as only 25,000 shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 2,400 of the Russian vaccine have arrived.
Serbia’s vaccination program began on December 24, three days before the EU, when Prime Minister Ana Brnabic received a dose in an effort to increase public confidence in the vaccine, as many Balkan governments are also struggling to counter a strong anti-vaccination movement.
The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, recently agreed on a € 70 million ($ 86 million) package to help Balkan countries gain access to the vaccines. The block has already contributed 500 million euros ($ 616 million) to COVAX.
“During the pandemic, the EU has shown that we treat the Western Balkans as privileged partners,” said EU Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi.
Ursula von der Leyen, head of the Executive Commission, says the EU will have more vaccines in 2021 than are needed for its people and has indicated that the bloc could share its extra supplies with the Western Balkans and countries in Africa.
Yet the prevailing impression in the Balkans is that the bloc has again failed the underdeveloped European region. In the words of Albanian political analyst Skender Minxhozi, the EU has reached its “opening or closing moment”.
“Show us if you care about us, or do not be surprised if some of us follow the call of Russian or Chinese pipes crossing the world with bags full of vaccines,” Minxhozi said.
The apparent lack of Western solidarity in the midst of the pandemic is being exploited by local pro-Russian politicians to portray the EU as only for-profit. Meanwhile, Russia and China are fighting for political and economic influence.
“I trust (the Russian vaccine), I do not trust the commercial narratives coming from the West,” Milorad Dodik, Bosnian Serb leader, stated before being hospitalized with coronavirus.
In the Albanian capital Tirana, Prime Minister Edi Rama demanded an apology from the Russian embassy after it published a message on social media that Moscow was ready to supply the Sputnik V vaccine to Albania immediately, although the shot was not in the EU is not certified.
“As a person I felt indignant and as a European I felt ashamed, while as Albanian Prime Minister I felt more motivated than ever to not allow Albanians to be excluded from the possibility of being protected at the same time as other Europeans. , “Rama said while signing a contract to buy 500,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Some believe the delay in vaccination could be a blessing in disguise in a region where years of declining confidence in government and public institutions have boosted the voices of virus deniers and skeptics about vaccines.
“I can not wait for life to return to normal and need a successful vaccine,” said Belma Gazibara, an infectious disease specialist working at Sarajevo’s COVID-19 hospital.
Gazibara says Bosnians’ desire to take the shots will increase if the coronavirus vaccine is launched elsewhere in Europe.
“If, as I strongly hope, the approved vaccines live up to their promise elsewhere in Europe, I expect the uptake to be much higher than it would be now,” she said.
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Stojanovic reports from Belgrade, Serbia. Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania, and Konstantin Testorides, in Skopje, Macedonia, contributed.