BELGRADE, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Serbia on Friday received the third shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from China, President Aleksandar Vucic has said.

Vucic welcomed the shipment at the Belgrade Airport on Friday evening and posted a video on social media, in which he expressed gratitude to China and urged citizens to take part in the vaccination campaign.

The first and second batches of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines reached Serbia on Jan. 16 and Feb. 10 respectively.

On Jan. 19, Serbia started its national vaccination campaign to rein in the spread of the novel coronavirus.

In the past several days, the daily number of new COVID-19 cases across the European country has been peaking above 4,000, while 4,161 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized, according to the health ministry.

So far, Serbia has confirmed 478,878 COVID-19 cases, while 4,525 patients have died of the disease.