“The political games around the pandemic and political crisis are disgusting and do damage to the public health and the image of the political forces that caused and maintain the dispute between the presidential administration and the parliamentary groups. The evolution of the pandemic and economic crisis remains uncertain. The PSRM-Shor majority managed to undermine the relations with the main partners of the Republic of Moldova. That’s why the perpetuation of this majority in power risks compromising the finding of solutions for overcoming the pandemic and economic crisis.   ”
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Financial resources for immunizing citizens

Health experts are unanimous as to the most efficient measures for fighting the COVID-19 pandemic – mass vaccination of the population. The main principles of the governmental policy concerning mass vaccination are free and voluntary immunization. Three major problems hamper the efficient implementation of the policy to immunize the population of the Republic of Moldova: insufficient financial resources and dependence on the support of international organizations; the people’s principally negative attitude to vaccination and the Moldovan political class’s irresponsibly.

The problem of mass immunization of the population came into the focus together with the spread of COVID-19 in Europe and America in the middle of 2020, when the competition of the great vaccine producers for inventing, testing, obtaining the authorization and selling the given products appeared. In such circumstances, it was evident that one of the key tasks of the Moldovan Government was to obtain the necessary quantities of vaccine from the supplies of international organizations and by commercial ways. In this regard, estimates were to be made and the funds needed for purchasing the vaccine were to be budgeted. Currently, as the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection said, the resources for buying the vaccine were identified in different finds:

• 5 million lei in the mandatory health insurance funds, earmarked for national and special health protection program;
• 10 million lei in the Reserve Fund of the National Health Insurance Company;
• 60 million lei in the Government’s Reserve Fund;
• ~116 million lei in the Government’s Intervention Fund (article 3(b))

The Ministry of Health considers other funds for purchasing the COVID-19 vaccine can also be attracted. It goes to the sum of 212 million lei that was negotiated and approved through a project of the Council of Europe Development Bank and the sum of $30 million for purchasing the vaccine in the framework of a World Bank project.

Given the Ministry of Health’s estimates, the Republic of Moldova actually has about 900 million lei for buying the vaccine. 191 million lei is available in the state budget, while the other 720 million lei can be obtained with the involvement of international organizations.

Pace of vaccination

Under the COVID-19 National Immunization Plan, the National Public Health Agency intends to immunize 70% of the population of the Republic of Moldova. The financial resources estimated above are enough to acquire approximately 5 million doses of vaccine at the price of $10 per dose. This is enough for achieving the goal set by the National Public Health Agency. But the polls carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Health show that only 31% of the country’s population wants to be vaccinated. That’s why very difficult explicative work needs to be conducted in relation to ~40% of the population given the aggressive propaganda conducted through all ways during a year by so-called “COVID dissidents”. 

The pace of immunization using the vaccines existing in the country is absolutely unsatisfactory. The vaccination campaign in Moldova started on March 2, 2021 and about 10,000 health workers were immunized during ten days. At such a pace, the vaccination of 70% of the population could last for about four years. For the sake of truth, it should be noted that the immunization situation is difficult even in some of the states that produce vaccines. For example, only ~5% of the population was immunized with the first dose only in Russia during two months since the start of the immunization campaign, ~4% - in the People’s Republic of China. Among the absolute champions in terms of the pace of immunization are: Israel ~100%, the United Arab Emirates ~65%, the UK ~36% and the U.S. ~31%. In the European Union, ~12% of the population had been vaccinated by mid-March.

Conclusions

The mass vaccination of the population is an imperative. The budget funds and the financial resources that are to be obtained from international organizations would be enough to ensure a proper immunization pace. The unwillingness of the absolute majority of the population to be vaccinated remains the biggest problem in the immunization process.

The political games around the pandemic and political crisis are disgusting and do damage to the public health and the image of the political forces that caused and maintain the dispute between the presidential administration and the parliamentary groups.

The evolution of the pandemic and economic crisis remains uncertain. The PSRM-Shor majority managed to undermine the relations with the main partners of the Republic of Moldova. That’s why the perpetuation of this majority in power risks compromising the finding of solutions for overcoming the pandemic and economic crisis.