Since the beginning of vaccination against coronavirus in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1,229,434 vaccines will be destroyed due to the expiration date, it was confirmed for “Nezavisne novine” in the Institute of Public Health of Republika Srpska and the Institute of Public Health of FBiH.
“Since the beginning of vaccination, 738,149 doses of vaccines in Republika Srpska entity have expired due to the expiration date, and the most are of the producers of “AstraZeneca”,” stated the Institute for “Nezavisne novine”.
The situation is no better in the Federation of BiH entity either, because, according to the data of the Federal Institute, 491,285 doses have expired since the beginning of vaccination against coronavirus due to the expiration date.
“Most expired vaccines are from “AstraZeneca” (303,139), followed by “Pfizer” (155,034), a smaller number compared to these two manufacturers are “Moderna” (20,540), “Sinopharm” (8,964) and “Sinovac”. “(3,608) doses,” is stated from the Institute.
As Ednan Drljevic, an infectologist at the Abdulah Nakas General Hospital in Sarajevo, told Nezavisne Novine, there are several reasons why vaccines have expired in BiH.
”One of the main reasons for the deterioration of vaccines is that we received most of them through donations, in which there were many of them with a shortened shelf life,” Drljevic points out.
The reason is also a weak vaccination campaign
“Weak campaign is also one of the reasons. Many vaccines were procured, but not used because the vaccination campaign was bad,” Drljevic points out.
New strain
The third reason for the failure of a large number of vaccines is the emergence of new strains of the virus.
“The third reason is that the coronavirus has reached the stage when a new strain appeared that is not as difficult and deadly as the previous ones. After that, the need and desire of citizens for vaccination automatically stopped,” said Drljevic.
As he said, in order to reduce the number of vaccine failures and continue the vaccination campaign, scientific research on vaccination is needed.
“We need a scientific explanation of how a vaccine can protect us from a new strain of the virus, whether vaccination will make sense and how resistant it will be to the virus,” said Drljevic.
Weak interest
As Bojan Subotic, the director of the Health Center in Prnjavor, told “Nezavisne novine”, regular monitoring of vaccines did not lead to deterioration due to the expired deadline.
“We regularly monitor the expiration date of the vaccines we receive. At the moment, our vaccination is at a very low level, receiving a booster dose has passed, and interest in new doses is minimal,” said Subotic, Avaz writes.
