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Austria to give Czech Republic vaccine doses in solidarity

02 April 2021 21:41 (UTC +04:00)

The Austrian Chancellor has said his country will provide the Czech Republic with 30,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine, APA reports citing BBC.

Sebastian Kurz's office it called a display of solidarity after Austria felt the European Union had not done enough to assist its neighbour.

EU ambassadors agreed on Thursday to change the bloc's vaccine distribution system for 10 million BioNTech-Pfizer doses due to be delivered in the second quarter. This was in order to help countries that needed it more.

Of those 10 million doses, 2.85 million so-called "solidarity vaccines" will be shared between Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia.

Austria says it is "incomprehensible" the Czech Republic - which has been hit hard by the pandemic - was not given more doses.

"We will... support the Czech Republic bilaterally with 30,000 doses of vaccine and believe it is very positive that we have also heard that other European countries are prepared to do the same," a statement by Kurz's office says.

"We do not want to accept that one of our neighbouring countries is left behind," it adds.