Director of the FB&H Institute of Public Health Davor Pehar said today in Sarajevo that the first vaccines against COVID-19 in FB&H should arrive at the end of this, or the beginning of next month. These will be Pfizer vaccines, and the public health institutes in FB&H are ready to start the vaccination process.

After a meeting on the start of vaccination activities attended by representatives of the FB&H Public Health Institute, the FB&H Ministry of Health and the FB&H cantonal public health institutions, Pehar said that they still have no precise information on the arrival of the quantities but that it should be between five and ten thousand doses.

He emphasized that the distribution of vaccines to public health institutes should be organized by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of B&H, from where it will be distributed to the cantonal institutes and further on to the health institutions.

Pehar added that in the premises of the public health institute in Mostar has a storage capability with a refrigerator with technical specifications for storing the most demanding Pfizer vaccines at -80 degrees Celsius, where they will be kept until the beginning of distribution.

Head of the Epidemiology Service of the FB&H Public Health Institute, Sanjin Musa, pointed out that the European Medical Agency is expected to authorize other vaccines by the end of the month, and that the process of procurement and distribution of vaccines is expected to move faster in the first quarter of 2021.

He explained that the priority groups for vaccination will be health workers and residents of nursing homes for the elderly.