AURORA SHPATAJ
50 thousand doses of the vaccine called “Covishield” have been delivered in Albania, as confirmed by a foreign mission in Tirana and the official response of the Ministry of Health. It turns out that this vaccine is a production which is being used in India and African countries, but it has not been authorized by EMA and FDA, despite the claims that it is a similar variant of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Finally, the Ministry of Health provided an official response on the number of vaccines (by production company) which have arrived in Albania since the beginning of the vaccination process.
The request for information was sent to this institution in the framework of an article (published August 26) in which Faktoje reports that the government has finally disclosed the contract on the purchase of the contingent of the Coronavac and Sputnik vaccines; yet without providing transparency on the purchase of the Pfizer BionTech vaccines. Therefore Faktoje requested from the Ministry of Health the number of vaccine doses which have arrived in the country by production company.
Request for information addressed to the Ministry of Health, August 20
In the response provided on September 7, the Ministry of Health confirms that 1.950.540 vaccine doses have arrived in the country since the beginning of the vaccination process to date.
Response of the Ministry of Health
Out of the total contingent of 1.950.540 doses of Anti-COVID vaccines, 1 million are Coronavac vaccines, a product which still hasn’t been authorized by the relevant institutions such as EMA and FDA.
Followed by:
540.540 Pfizer doses
300.000 AstraZeneca doses
60.000 Sputnik V doses
50.000 Covishield doses
What drew our attention in the official response was the report on the vaccine named Covishield, which has never been published before by official authorities.
It turns out that the 50.000 Covishield vaccine doses have arrived in Albania after an agreement with India; information which Faktoje obtained by researching the countries which recognize the vaccines used in Albania.
According to the response of a foreign mission in Tirana, it turns out that Albania has entered a bilateral agreement with India for 50.000 Covishield vaccine doses, which have already been delivered in the form of a donation.
“If you go to the UNICEF COVID-19 Market Panel and click on the delivery file you will see that Albania has received a total of 143.400 vaccine doses (AstraZeneca) through Covax. If you check the donations box on the left side you will see that India has a bilateral agreement with Albania for 50.000 Covishield vaccines which have been delivered.”
Response Media room, Gavi vaccine alliance dated August 31.
From our research here at Faktoje it turns out that this is the Indian variant of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but named “Covishield”.
According to a document by Open Data, this vaccine is administered in India and African countries but until now it has not been approved by EMA or FDA. According to information by Open Data the Serum Institute of India Covishield vaccine has been experimented once in two different countries and it has been approved by 17 countries.
We found no reports on the Covishield vaccine on the website of the Ministry of Health, which raises questions about who is being injected this vaccine. For this reason we addressed the Ministry of Health once more and are expecting an official response.
Request addressed to the Ministry of Health
Faktoje also checked the webpage of the Ministry of Health for reports on the arrival of the Covishield vaccine and which category was administered the vaccine, but there is no information regarding this.
Screenshot from the webpage of the Ministry of Heath where there is no information about the Covishield vaccine.
