Serbia's leader chooses Chinese-made vaccine for own shot

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic finally rolled up his sleeve for a coronavirus vaccine Tuesday and to encourage his country's increasingly skeptical citizens to get the shots themselves.

A live TV broadcast showed Vucic, 51, taking a jab of the Chinese-developed Sinopharm vaccine in the remote eastern village of Rudna Glava. He elected to get the Sinopharm vaccine as some experts have suggested that a third shot of the Chinese vaccine may be required because two doses don’t appear to produce enough protection.

“I received the vaccine, and I feel great,” Vucic said on his Instagram page. “Thank you our great health workers. Thank you our Chinese brothers.”

The populist Serbian president, who rarely wears a protective mask during his frequent public appearances, had promised for months to get vaccinated but found different reasons to postpone the event.

The delay prompted speculation on social media that Vucic was afraid of injection needles, that he did not trust the vaccines or that he had been vaccinated secretly months ago.

The president's critics said his apparent reluctance helped boost an increasingly strong anti-vaccination movement in Serbia, a traditionally conservative Balkan state.

Serbia has one of the highest COVID-19 inoculation rates in Europe, mainly thanks to the government’s large purchases of the Sinopharm vaccine. The Balkan nation also is using the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca.

Some 1.5 million of Serbia’s 7 million people have received at least one vaccine dose so far, but the country has seen a recent decline in residents signing up for shots. Officials and doctors link the drop-off to the vocal anti-vaccine movement.

Vucic has taken most...