World Bank allocates $34.5 million to support vaccination in Georgia

The World Bank has approved $34.5 million to support Georgia’s vaccination efforts. The additional financing comes on top of the $80 million that the organization provided in March 2020 to help the country mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic.

The additional financing will help Georgia to accelerate and ensure equal access to the vaccination against the Covid-19. It is expected that at least 60% of the population will be fully vaccinated by the end of 2021.

“Additional funding will help cover all types of costs associated with the Covid-19 response, including the purchase and the use of vaccines against COVID-19, purchase of syringes and other medical supplies, as well as logistics, planning and management, communication, information campaign, training, and general health care”, the World Bank said.

Georgia expects thousands of doses of Pfizer, Novavax, and Johnson & Johnson in the third quarter of this year, head of the National Center for Disease Control Amiran Gamkrelidze said a few days ago.

By June 8,173,345 vaccinations have been administered in Georgia and 47,749 people have been fully vaccinated.

Nevertheless, every day in Georgia, up to a thousand people become infected with Covid-19, and up to 30 die every day as a result of the virus. The situation is now gradually stabilizing, said Amiran Gamkrelidze, head of the National Center for Disease Control. The curfew has also been reduced in Georgia – instead of 21:00, it now comes in effect at 23:00 and lasts until 04:00.

The vaccination process is still slow in Georgia. Lack of trust in the vaccines as well as the poor management of the overall vaccination process, has become a serious obstacle to Georgia’s nationwide vaccination program. Many people have to travel several hundred kilometers to get vaccinated, even when though there are currently several thousand unused doses of vaccine in the country.

At this point, four vaccines are available in Georgia – German-American Pfizer, the British AstraZeneca, the Chinese Sinopharm (Beijing), and the Chinese Sinovak, all of which have been authorized by the World Health Organization.