Serbia Welcomes WHO Permit to Produce COVID Vaccines

Serbian Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar said its country accepted the "serious responsibility" it was being given after the WHO on Wednesday approved Serbia to produce RNA vaccines, which include Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines, but also vaccines made for other illnesses besides COVID-19.

He spoke after a meeting with the director of the Serbian office of the World Health Organization on Wednesday, saying that the WHO permit for Serbia to produce RNA vaccines was "a serious responsibility for our entire health system, because we are now expected to start doing it".

Loncar added that also means that there will be enough quality vaccines not only for the region, but for the whole world. "This is a global problem and everyone in the whole world must be vaccinated in sufficient numbers to get out of the corona," Loncar said, Serbia's Tanjug news agency reported.

Access to technology for the production of RNA vaccines had been given to Serbia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam, WHO Director-General Tedros Gebrejesus said on Wednesday.

Serbia has been a regional champion of vaccination and uses Chinese vaccines, Russia's Sputnik V, but also the Pfizer-BioNTech, Astra Zeneca and Moderna vaccines.

In May 2021, Serbia began to compose Russia's Sputnik V domestically at the state's Torlak Institute for Virology, Vaccines and Serums in Belgrade.

In September, it unveiled a joint Serbian, Chinese and UAE project, after officials laid the foundations of a factory near Belgrade to mass-produce China's Sinopharm.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on September 9 at the launch event that the factory would eventually produce 30 million vaccine doses a year, which he said would be, "enough for Serbia, the region...