Almost one and a half million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 have been wasted so far in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
Considering the expiration date and the decreasing interest of citizens in vaccination, a significantly larger number of these vaccines will certainly be thrown away, out of a total of slightly more than four million.
The answer of the Institute
The Institute for Public Health of the Federation of BiH (FBiH)confirmed on Wednesday that they received a total of 2.395.952 doses of vaccines against COVID-19, and of that number, 607.829 doses have expired.
”Expired vaccines are scrapped, i.e. removed from the offer and destroyed by the contracted and authorized company, which in September of this year took over the scrapped vaccines from the Institute of Public Health of the FBiH and from which we expect a confirmation of the destruction, which will subsequently be delivered. The funds used for the destruction of the mentioned waste are 2.177.30 BAM,” the Institute replied.
They emphasized that the expired vaccines which were wastedwere obtained through donation programs.
At the moment, as it was confirmed, the Institute has a total of 411.090 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, namely 300.297 “Sinopharm”, 60.654 “Comirnaty”, 50.064 “Moderna” and 75 doses of “Sinovac” vaccines.
Third dose
When it comes to the number of people vaccinated in FBiH, according to the latest data from Wednesday, 555.150 people were vaccinated with the first dose only, and 529.063 got the second as well. 128.536 people received the third dose, and 4.956 the fourth.
According to the latest data from the Republika Srpska (RS), out of a total of 1.824.893 doses of vaccines received, 867.283 of them have expired. Those are mainly donated vaccines.
Marketing campaign
It is interesting that last month the Institute made a decision to select the most favorable bidder for the procurement of marketing campaign services with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of vaccination against COVID-19.
The company “More Screens” was selected as the most favorable bidder, which made an offer of 129.700 BAM excluding VAT, Avaz reports.
E.Dz.
