Million doses of Pfizer vaccines arriving in Georgia

The delivery of one million doses of the Pfizer vaccines has already begun in Georgia, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has announced. He said Georgia will be receiving the vaccines gradually every weekend enabling the population to register at booking.moh.gov.ge.

We have a million Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines based on a traditional method and authorised by the WHO. As you know, it is planned to deliver a million Pfizer doses, and the US Government has decided to donate half a million doses, which we will receive in the next few weeks, on top of a million Sinovac and Sinopharm to be delivered to Georgia”, PM Garibashvili said.

He expressed his concern for the recent increase of infections among children. As a parent he urges Georgians ‘to exercise high civic responsibility’ and get vaccinated. 

The only tool the Government has is to offer mass vaccination, which we have already started. Yesterday, we had record-breaking numbers, 10,000 doses administered, but this is not enough. We must reach at least 20,000-30,000 to vaccinate about half a million a month”, he said. 

Garibashvili calls on citizens to engage in the process of vaccination because it is vitally important ‘to protect our own health and the health of our parents, children, and those around us’.

Over the past few days, we have had growing infection rates, and I want once again to explain to our citizens that vaccination is the best solution in this situation. Shortage of vaccines used to be a problem in the country, but we did everything to import enough vaccines”, he said. 

Saying that the Government has done everything to import vaccines, Irakli Garibashvili said ‘we need to join forces and ensure the successful management and completion of the process of vaccination’.

Vaccination is currently underway in Georgia with four vaccines: Sinopharm, Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Photo: UNICEF Georgia

Meanwhile, welcoming the start of the ‘rapid economic revival’, PM Garibashvili also said that in April Georgia had 45% growth, ‘unprecedented in our region and probably worldwide’. 

In May, we had 25%, and we expect double digits in June as well. In the first 5-6 months, we have 12% growth, and that allows us to expect this year's growth to be in double digit”, Irakli Garibashvili said, explaining that it means ‘greater prosperity, greater budget revenues, and more projects implemented’. 

The business community is quite optimistic, and we are very happy about that. Tourists have increased in our streets, and you can see that hotels are pretty much all booked up. And that will undoubtedly impact the welfare of our citizens”, he told journalists.  

Georgia has reported a total of 1,808 new cases of coronavirus after conducting 15,268 PCR and 19,711 rapid tests over the last 24 hours. Out of the 1,808 new cases 1,046 were reported in Tbilisi.