European countries turning to East for vaccines amid supply shortage

"We should use this opportunity," said Ladjevac. "Serbia can do something like Israel, the first country that will finish this mass vaccination... We can achieve something like that too."

Under the state's mass inoculation drive, Serbian authorities have approved four vaccines, respectively developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca, China's Sinopharm and Russia's Sputnik V.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told Xinhua that most people in his country are vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine.

"People here are very satisfied and we are very proud that we succeeded in delivering such good things for the better health of our people and for the future of this country," he said.

A shipment of Sinopharm vaccines will arrive in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) soon too, as ordered on Feb. 8 by Republika Srpska (RS), one of BiH's two entities, Minister of Health and Social Welfare of RS Alen Seranic told Xinhua.

"Based on other countries' experiences, where Chinese vaccines have already been approved, we decided that we also need to acquire a certain number of vaccines from China," Seranic said. "We already ordered vaccines for 20 percent of our population."