North Macedonia speeds up vaccinations as EU aid arrives

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia’s faltering COVID-19 vaccination program has picked up speed, with authorities starting to use 200,000 Chinese-made Sinopharm jabs flown in last week. Also Tuesday, the European Union’s top official for enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, delivered about 5,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses to North Macedonia. That’s part of a batch of 120,000 the 27-nation bloc will donate to the country by the end of August. The small Balkan country has struggled with vaccine supply shortages. About 4% of country’s 2.1 million people — mostly health workers and the elderly — have received a first shot, mostly from batches donated by Serbia and Russia.