Today, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is much more prepared to deal with health crises than it was at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
This was highlighted at the opening ceremony of the laboratory for molecular diagnostics in the public health facilities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Mostar and the presentation of the improved cold chain as one of the most important elements in the immunization process.
Assistant to the FBiH Minister of Health, Marina Bera, emphasized that today’s event is very significant from the point of view of public health.
“The FBiH Institute for Public Health implemented two large projects in a very short time. We carried out both of these projects together with our partners, which are the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNDP and the European Union.
Thanks to our donors, we managed to reach a situation where almost all our cantons have at least one PCR machine, which enables the most modern diagnosis not only of covid-19 but also of other diseases,” said Bera.
She added that the aforementioned laboratory is of exceptional importance in the context of drafting a new law on the protection of the population from infectious diseases.
She added that the aforementioned laboratory is of exceptional importance in the context of drafting a new law on the protection of the population from infectious diseases.
Director of the Institute of Public Health of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Siniša Skočibušić, pointed out that the preliminary task of the new laboratory is to monitor the state of health, that is, to detect various pathogens and report them to the European Institute of Public Health.
When it comes to the current epidemiological situation, Skočibušič stated that it is difficult to give a forecast of what will happen in the winter period when it comes to the coronavirus.
On this occasion, the Head of the UNICEF representative office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rownak Khan, congratulated the Institute for Public Health of the FBiH on what she said was an extraordinary achievement.
“We are glad that we were partners in the whole process and that, together with USAID and the EU, we were able to buy the equipment needed for the cold chain and these facilities that make it possible and which we visited today. We are still trying to provide assistance to this country and once again we want to emphasize the vaccination of children. A rather worrying fact is that the vaccination rate for MMR has dropped from 80 to 60 percent, so we hope and ask for the help of the authorities in solving this problem,” said Khan.
The special representative of the regional director of the World Health Organization for the Europe region, Erwin Cooreman, emphasized that the importance of the laboratory for molecular diagnostics is of immense importance for public health.
Gianluca Vannini, Head of the Operations Section for Social Development, Civil Society and Cross-Border Cooperation of the EU Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, recalled that the European Union provided more than 20 million euros in aid to our country in the fight against the pandemic.
