When will Georgia be able to get the Covid-19 vaccine?
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Monday, January 12
Many countries around the world, including the United States and EU member states, started vaccinating their citizens at the end of 2020. Georgia is still in the process of negotiations and it is unknown when will it be able to start massive vaccination.
At the moment, the country has two possibilities: waiting for the vaccine on the list of the third world countries or coming to an agreement with the producer countries through diplomatic channels. It is believed that the process might start around February or March.
On January 17, a special meeting was held at the government administration to discuss this. As it was noted at the meeting, “the vaccination action plan is practically complete.” The meeting discussed target groups to be vaccinated in the first place, adding that that intensive work to get the vaccine as soon as possible continues.
The Interagency Coordinating Council will assess the plan next week. Recently, Amiran Gamkrelidze, director of the National Center for Disease Control, provided a few details on the issue. According to him, at least 60% of the population should be vaccinated to develop public immunity. Vaccination is intended for citizens over 18.
As for the vaccination costs, Gamkrelidze said that it ranges from 65 million to 170 million. He also said that while it might be hard to vaccinate 60% of the Georgian population, it is not impossible. He also noted that Georgia will initially receive enough vaccines from the Covax platform to vaccinate 20% of the population. The Minister of Health Ekaterine Tikaradze announced on January 12 that the population of Georgia will be vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine in the near future. However, she did not talk about further details.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is used in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union. It is also approved by the World Health Organization.
