President Aleksandar Vucic told a meeting of the top state leadership that the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is due to be delivered to Serbia soon.

He said the delivery of that fourth type of coronavirus vaccine will come to Serbia once a contract is signed with Poland and AstraZeneca for 800,000 doses of its vaccine.

Vucic added that another shipment of 250,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine is expected to arrive this week – 200,000 of the first dose and 50,000 of the second dose. The Serbian President said that mass vaccination with the Chinese Sinofarm vaccine would start on Tuesday.

He said that Serbia was the first country in the region to pay into the European Union COVAX program fund but had not received a single dose of vaccine through the program but added that he believes the EU will “understand the needs of the Western Balkans”.

“Vaccination is of huge importance for Serbia and without it we won’t beat the coronavirus, not just in terms of health but in economic terms as well and the country will be brought to the brink of ruin,” he said.

Vucic said that a state of the art monitoring system had been set up to track who has been vaccinated, when and where. He said people in the education system, police and health care system should be vaccinated along with people in public companies as well as post office staff and power company employees.