CHISINAU, November 20. /TASS/. A holding of privately owned companies in Transnistria will pay for 100,000 full vaccination sets of Russia’s Sputnik V anti-coronavirus vaccine for residents of the unrecognized republic, Transnistrian President Vadim Krasnoselsky has told local journalists.
"A set of two doses costs $19.5. We agreed on the delivery of 200,000 doses of the vaccine, enough to inoculate 100,000 people. The delivery will be split in two shipments: 50,000 sets first and 50,000 sets a while later," the Transnistrian president’s press service quoted him as saying.
Earlier, the government of Transnistria accused Moldova of deliberately delaying the process of Sputnik V approval. The vaccine delivery was supposed to be in the form of humanitarian aid. According to Krasnoselsky, the price was the main stumbling block for the process.
"There were questions about the price. The Moldovan side was not satisfied by the price of $19.5. They did not want to register it because of that, saying that we should negotiate a better price, so that Moldova could also pay less later," the Transnistrian president said.
Earlier this week, the government of Moldova also announced its plans to buy 100,000 full vaccination sets of Sputnik V. The country’s health ministry described the vaccine as the most preferred for the country’s population.
So far, about one quarter of Moldova’s residents have been immunized against COVID-19. The country with a population of around 3.4 million people, including the unrecognized republic of Transnistria, needs approximately 4.8 million doses of the vaccine to inoculate 70% of its citizens. So far, Moldova has received over 1.4 million doses, mostly via the COVAX international vaccine-sharing mechanism. Also, Russia, Romania, China, Turkey and other countries sent vaccines to Moldova as humanitarian aid.