Romella Abovyan, who heads the Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Department at Armenia’s National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters at a press conference today in Yerevan that the country was initially offered the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine by COVAX but was later replaced by the Astra Zeneca vaccine since the former had to be kept at exceptionally low temperatures and that Armenia doesn’t have the capacity to do so.

Armenia received 24,000 doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine through the global COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative on March 28.

Abovyan said that Armenia had 2,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine prior to receiving the Astra Zeneca batch.

"We are waiting for the next batch of AstraZeneca in the coming months. There may be other vaccines. The ministry will discuss what is offered,” she said.

Public health specialist Davit Melik-Nubaryan said that 18.5 million doses of AstraZeneca have already been given to people in EU countries and that it’s the second most popular vaccine in the EU after Pfizer.