SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (PA) – When thousands of people across the European Union began rolling up their sleeves last month to receive a coronavirus vaccine, a corner of the continent was left behind, feeling isolated and abandoned: Balkans.
Balkan nations have struggled to gain access to COVID-19 vaccines from several companies and programs, but most nations in the south-eastern periphery of Europe are still waiting for their first vaccines to arrive, without a firm timeline for starting their national inoculation attempts. .
What is already clear is that Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Serbia – which are home to around 20 million people – will lag far behind the 27 EU and UK nations in their efforts to achieves the immunity of the herd by rapid vaccination of a large number of people.
North Macedonian epidemiologist Dragan Danilovski compared the current vaccine situation in the Western Balkans to the inequalities observed during the 1911 sinking of the Titanic.
“The rich have taken all available lifeboats, leaving behind the less fortunate,” Danilovski told TV 24.
Such a sentiment as the world faces its worst health crisis in a century has gained attention in the Western Balkans – a term used to identify Balkan states that want to join but are not yet part of the Balkans. EU. It is actively fueled by pro-Russian politicians in a region between Western and Russian spheres of influence.
“I felt like I had not lost hope of returning to a normal life,” said 50-year-old Belma Djonko in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, describing the emotional outburst of hearing that thousands of doctors , nurses and the elderly across the EU have received the first doses of vaccine developed by US doctor Pfizer and German company BioNTech, while its war-torn country is awaited.
Many Balkan countries are hoping for COVAX, a global vaccine procurement agency set up by the World Health Organization and global charities to address growing inequalities in vaccine distribution. COVAX has obtained offers for several promising COVID-19 vaccines, but for now it will only cover doses to inoculate 20% of a country’s population.
Along with other politically unstable post-communist Balkan nations, which have long expressed a desire to join the EU but do not continue to meet the conditions to achieve this goal, Bosnia has reserved COVAX vaccines and is waiting for the first doses to start in April.
That seems like an eternity now.
“In the meantime, I have to deprive my 83-year-old father of the company and love of his grandchildren,” Djonko said, referring to the low-tech but heartbreaking defense against the virus, keeping the elderly isolated. of potential sources of infection.
Serbia is the only Western Balkan nation to have received vaccines so far, with deliveries from Pfizer-BioNTech and the Sputnik V vaccine developed by Russia. However, Serbia does not have enough doses to start mass vaccinations, as only 25,000 vaccines have arrived with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 2,400 from the Russian vaccine.
Serbia’s vaccination program began on December 24, three days before the EU, when Prime Minister Ana Brnabic received a dose in an attempt to boost public confidence in the vaccine, as many Balkan governments are also fighting to counter a move. strong anti-vaccination.
The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, recently agreed on a € 70m ($ 86m) package to help the Balkan nations gain access to vaccines, in addition to the € 500m (616m). million), the bloc has already contributed to COVAX.
“Throughout the pandemic, the EU has shown that we treat the Western Balkans as a privileged partner,” said EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi.
Ursula von der Leyen, head of the Executive Committee, says the EU will have more vaccines than is needed for its residents in 2021 and said the bloc could share supplies with the Western Balkans and African countries.
However, in the Balkans, the dominant impression is that the bloc has once again failed the underdeveloped European region. In the words of Albanian political analyst Skender Minxhozi, the EU has reached its “closed or silent” moment.
“Either you show us that you care about us, or you are not surprised if some of us follow the call of the Russian or Chinese butterflies that cross the world with their pockets full of vaccines,” said Minxhozi.
The apparent lack of Western solidarity amid the pandemic is being exploited by pro-Russian local politicians to describe the EU as profit-only. Meanwhile, Russia and China are fighting for political and economic influence.
“I trust (the Russian vaccine), I don’t trust the commercial narratives that come from the West,” said Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik before being hospitalized with coronavirus.
In the Albanian capital Tirana, Prime Minister Edi Rama apologized to the Russian embassy after posting on social media that Moscow was ready to provide Albania with the Sputnik V vaccine immediately, although the blow was not certified in the EU.
“As a person I felt outraged and as a European I felt ashamed, while as Prime Minister of Albania I felt more motivated never to allow Albanians to be excluded from the possibility of being protected simultaneously with others. Europeans, ”Rama said as he announced a contract to buy 500,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Some believe that the delay in vaccination could prove to be a blessing in disguise in a region where years of declining confidence in government and public institutions have amplified the voices of virus deniers and vaccine skeptics.
“I can’t wait for life to return to normal, and for that to happen, we need a successful vaccine,” said Belma Gazibara, an infectious disease specialist working at COVID-19 Hospital in Sarajevo.
Gazibara says pursuing the launch of the coronavirus vaccine elsewhere in Europe will increase Bosniaks’ desire to have gunfire.
“If, as I strongly hope, approved vaccines keep their promise in other parts of Europe, I expect the absorption to be much higher than it would be right now,” she said.
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Stojanovic reported from Belgrade, Serbia. Contributed by Llazar Semini from Tirana, Albania and Konstantin Testorides from Skopje, Macedonia.