Serbia Signs Agreement to Produce Chinese Sinopharm Vaccine

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation with China and the United Arab Emirates on Monday for the production of the Chinese Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine in Serbia.

"This is an extremely important day for Serbia, but also for the entire region, because we will have the vaccine here closer, it will be more accessible and we will be able to fight the coronavirus pandemic further," Brnabic said.

While the factory is being built, with aid from the UAE, Brnabic explained that Serbia intends to fill vials domestically with doses of the vaccine.

"Our goal is to build a factory for the production of vaccines by the end of the year, to work on filling in parallel, and to have ten million doses that we have filled here by the end of the year," she said.

China's ambassador to Belgrade, Chen Bo, said that the signing of the memorandum was an important step forward in cooperation on the joint production of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines.

"China is trying to fulfill the promise of our President Xi Jinping that the vaccine be a public product. So far, we have provided 500 million doses for more than 100 countries around the world," she said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced plans to produce China's Sinopharm vaccine while visiting the UAE in March this year, boosting Serbia's position as a vaccination leader in the Balkans.

Serbia also started domestic production of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine on June 4 at the state's Torlak Institute for Virology, Vaccines and Serums in Belgrade.

Brnabic said on July 11 that so far, 48.6 per cent of Serbia's adult population has been vaccinated. Serbia has also provided vaccinations to thousands of citizens of neighbouring countries.