Federal Health Institute denies that there are a lot of unused Vaccines in Warehouses

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Public Health Institute denied the allegations of the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH Stasa Kosarac who said that he had statistical data "which indicate the fact that we have a lot of unused vaccines in warehouses".

The Federal Institute said that by Thursday (July 8, 2021), the Federation of BiH had received a total of 428,354 doses of vaccines from various manufacturers, both through the COVAX and EU4Health mechanism, and through donations from the Republic of Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, China, Malaysia and Hungary. 

The Public Health Institute of the Federation of BiH has so far distributed a total of 288,597 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to the cantons, according to a pre-established distribution algorithm.

The Institute of Public Health of the Federation of BiH in Mostar has the remaining quantities of vaccines that are kept for revaccination (about 15,000 doses of Sinovac) as well as vaccines that arrived on Wednesday (July 7, 2021) and are awaiting the findings of the Agency for Medicines and Medical BiH funds, so that it can be distributed to the cantons.

"These are 100,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by Hungary and 4,680 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech from the EU4Health program," it was stated by the Institute.

Kosarac said yesterday that he had statistics "indicating that we have a lot of unused vaccines in warehouses." He added that the Minister of Civil Affairs of BiH, Ankica Gudeljevic, should be asked what she knows about that. 

He explains that the Council of Ministers has been informed about this, and that "the vaccines are in storage, perhaps because of the problems of the immunization campaign". 

According to Kosarac, the Council of Ministers had a proactive role in the procurement of vaccines, and funds were adequately secured and paid into the COVAX mechanism. 

"The problem is in the COVAX mechanism. Those speculations that the Council of Ministers did not react adequately should be rejected. It should also be said that the Council of Ministers, ie the chairman Tegeltija and Minister Gudeljevic, conducted significant activities with the competent entity ministries when it comes to vaccine procurement. And it is not true that the Council of Ministers had an indolent attitude. I reject those kinds of speculations, "Kosarac said.