40,000 Russian vaccine doses land in Belgrade

Around 40,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine arrived at Belgrade airport Friday morning, boosting Serbia's speedy vaccination program.While its neighbors have struggled to secure doses, Serbia has embarked on one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in Europe with some 400,000 people getting jabs so far in the country of 7 million people.Friday's delivery supplemented thousands of Sputnik V and Pfizer doses which arrived earlier this month, alongside one million Sinopharm doses from China.

Russian experts will join their Serbian counterparts in two weeks to draw up a plan to distribute the Sputnik V vaccine across the Balkan nation, Serbian government official Nenad Popovic said.He added that another two million doses of the Russian jab will arrive over the next two months.

Serbian officials said that so far, their vaccine shipments have been negotiated directly with Russia, China and Pfizer representatives in the U.S.

None have been delivered through the global COVAX scheme which aims to provide affordable shots to low and middle-income countries, they said.