The vaccination against COVID-19 of teachers and academic staff kicked off in six schools in Tirana and the immunization process will be extended to teachers and academic staff across the country. 

Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu, visited the “4 Deshmoret” school in Tirana, where the medical staff started the immunization with first 250 teachers. 

“The vaccination kicked off with teachers of first six schools in Tirana in a process closely coordinated with the Education Directorate. The process is already underway and more than 250 teachers have been registered in advance. It all started with Tirana teachers first and the vaccine distribution to the healthcare centres across the country is set to begin Monday and immunisation of all teachers will begin on Tuesday,” Health Minister Manastirliu said.

Doctor Silva Bino, the Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Disease Control at the Public Health Institute, who is assisting the coronavirus vaccine rollout for teachers, school staff, and childcare workers, underlined that “AstraZeneca vaccine is completely safe.”

“Earlier today I came across the statement issued by the Director of Italy’s Public Health Institute, so to speak – Prime Minister Rama said – who noted it is entirely a false alarm based on no evidence of whatsoever, since there is no data indicating that the reported cases are caused by the vaccine and the decision to suspend a series of vaccines is to provide 100% guarantees. The batch of the vaccines delivered to Albania came from Sweden. Meanwhile, millions of AstraZeneca vaccines have been already administered to people in Great Britain and no problems have been reported. A certain series of vaccines have been suspended in some countries for the authorities to conduct a verification process and draw conclusions on the reported cases. However, a very small number of cases have been reported.

The vaccination of teachers and the academic staff across the country will provide yet another tool to break the infection chain and help restore life back to normality. “AstraZeneca vaccine will allow us to vaccinate everyone, as the batch of 38 000 doses will be administered all, since the second dose can be administered eight to 12 weeks later,” Manastirliu said.

Prime Minister Edi Rama also said: “We are close to receiving some great news and I am confident another considerable amount of vaccines will arrive in the next few days. The challenge we all will the face is administering as many doses as possible so that we can break the infection chain ahead of the summer season. In other words, we will kick off mass immunisation of the elderly people, the police and army members and everyone else highly exposed to the virus due to their occupation and interaction. We will hit that part of the chain that is highly exposed and finally remove retired people from isolation.”