France has pledged to donate 15,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Slovakia while lending its support to the decision of the European Union to allocate 100,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Slovakian Prime Minister Igor Matovic said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th March, 2021) France has pledged to donate 15,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Slovakia while lending its support to the decision of the European Union to allocate 100,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Slovakian Prime Minister Igor Matovic said on Thursday.
"France today made a gesture of friendship and European solidarity for Slovakia in a difficult epidemiological situation. Slovakia will receive vaccines as a gift for the first time. 15,000 authorized Astra Zeneca vaccines. No other country has given vaccines to Slovakia," Matovic wrote on Facebook.
The prime minister noted that Paris also made significant efforts to persuade the EU to allocate 100,000 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines to Bratislava.
In early February, the Slovakian prime minister visited Paris and held talks on the pandemic situation with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Slovakia has been under a state of health emergency over the coronavirus since October 2020. Starting Wednesday, the government updated a list of related restrictions, adding a curfew from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m (7:00 to 00:00 GMT), and the mandatory wearing of respirators in public places later this month.
In December, the national authorities launched a mass vaccination campaign, using vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca developers but later encountered delays and other issues with the shipments of the vaccines.
Notably, earlier this week Slovakia received the first batch of the Sputnik V vaccine, purchased from Moscow at the initiative of Matovic, a move condemned by the country's other high-ranking officials, as the Russian vaccine has not yet been authorized by the EU.
To date, Slovakia has vaccinated 328,904 people with the first dose, and given 161,117 people a second shot. As of Thursday, the authorities confirmed a total of 317,159 COVID-19 cases and 7,560 related fatalities.
