Slovakia, a country suffering the world's highest mortality rate from Covid-19, has received a donation of 15,000 coronavirus vaccine doses from France, Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic said.

Matovic described the Oxford-AstraZeneca doses as a “very kind and useful gift” and a “great gesture of friendship”, at a news conference with French Ambassador Christophe Leonzi, local press agency TASR reported.

Speaking in Bojnice, western Slovakia, the premier added that France had supported the idea of the European Union urgently sending 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to Slovakia.