NATO delivers ventilators to Montenegro
On 4 November 2020 health authorities in Montenegro received 20 ventilators donated by the NATO stockpile in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ventilators were transferred to health authorities in Montenegro in a ceremony in front of the Clinical Centre in Podgorica, attended by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Montenegro, Major General Dragutin Dakic and by Dr. Nermin Abdic, Chief of the Crisis Medical Team in the National Coordinating Body for Infectious Diseases. The ventilators will be distributed in the coming days to local hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.
The donation was coordinated by NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) in response to a request from Montenegro. The ventilators are part of a donation from the United States to the NATO stockpile in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
NATO has established a stockpile of medical equipment in order to be able to provide immediate relief to Allies or partners in need. Several Allies have made financial and in-kind donations of medical equipment and supplies to the Pandemic Response Trust Fund.
The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) is managing the purchase and storage of relief items for the stockpile. The 20 ventilators to Montenegro were stored by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency in a warehouse facility at the NSPA Southern Operational Centre in Taranto, Italy and were initially transported to Skopje by an Italian transport aircraft C27J on Friday, 30 October. The air delivery mission was funded by Luxembourg and managed by the European Air Transport Command (EATC), a multinational command for air transport, air-to-air refueling and aeromedical evacuation. The ventilators were subsequently transported to Podgorica by commercial road transport.
In addition to the ventilators, Montenegro will be receiving a total of EUR 500.000 in medical supplies through the Pandemic Response Trust Fund in the coming weeks.
