The Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu has inspected the new health center Dritas, in the area of ??Zall-Herri, reconstructed within the national program of 300 health centers. 

Seeing the progress of the vaccination process in this health center, Minister Manastirliu emphasized the continuation of the antiCOVID vaccination process, as the only way to protect the health, as she announced the intensification of this process door to door for the vaccination of every citizen. 

"We have decided with the Technical Committee of Experts to have a re-evaluation on a periodic basis of the vaccination process in young people and in certain areas, to have a proper door-to-door plan, now with areas where there is more access challenging this process, to increase vaccine coverage. Because we know very well that vaccination is a challenge in itself. It is not an easy process that can be done simply with a public appeal, but it has to go door to door. Every citizen must be convinced of the importance of vaccination", stressed Manastirliu. 

Expressing that the situation is being monitored in dynamics, Manastirliu said that samples are being evaluated to identify the new variant of Omicron, BA.2. 

"A sub-variant of Omicron BA.2 is circulating in different countries, mainly European countries, where there is an increasing trend today of cases of infections because it has very high transmissibility. What is being noticed is that vaccination, especially the third dose, helps reduce severe cases and reduce hospitalizations and fatalities. Currently, in Albania, we do not have confirmed cases yet. But of course, we are continuing through our active surveillance and evaluating the samples that come to the IPH, to take them to the reference laboratories", said Manastirliu. 

Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases at IPH, Silva Bino appealed for the importance of anticovid vaccination, as protection for all variants of Covid-19.

So far in Albania have arrived over 3.1 million doses of vaccine have been administered 2,758,613 doses. Vaccination coverage with the first dose for the target population (+16 years) in Albania is about 55%. Within this year, 1 million doses of Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive and the supply of vaccines through the COVAX instrument will continue.