Tatiana Zatîc, secretary of state at the Ministry of Health, said the authorities’ decision to buy the CoronaVac vaccine was imposed by the critical situation in which the Republic of Moldova was two months ago. According to her, no company wanted to negotiate with the Republic of Moldova and the Chinese company Sinovac was the only one that accepted to sell the COVID-19 vaccine, even if at a much higher price, IPN reports.

Moldova purchased 100,000 doses of CoronaVac vaccine at the price of US$13.5 per dose or US$27 per set. Even if the price is much higher than in the case of AstraZeneca, the authorities say this was the only solution at that time.

“It was a decision imposed by the then circumstances. At that stage, the availability of the vaccine in the country was very low. The country didn’t have other available offers than this one from China. The decision was taken in concert with the National Immunization Committee. Specialists provided sufficient evidence of the efficiency of this vaccine. It wasn’t a very large lot, but these doses save lives,” Tatiana Zatîc stated in the talk show “Emphasis on Today” on TVR Moldova channel.

She announced that a new lot of Pfizer vaccine doses is expected to come to Chisinau until the end of May. “We are waiting for a new batch of free vaccines from the COVAX platform. This is the Pfizer vaccine. The platform promised we will get free vaccines for 20% of the country’s population, which is over 700,000 people will get both of the doses of vaccine,” stated Tatiana Zatîc.

The Republic of Moldova on May 11 kicked off the third stage of the COVID-19 immunization campaign. This covers the general population, regardless of age. Over 185,000 people got vaccinated in Moldova so far.