The Ministry of Civil Affairs of B&H confirmed today that the first doses of coronavirus vaccines produced by "Pfizer" and "BioNTech", 23,400 of them, will arrive in mid-February.
At the same time, 437,214 citizens have been vaccinated in neighboring Serbia so far. Serbia is one of the best in Europe, and even in the world in terms of the number of vaccinated.
In Europe, Serbia is second in the number of vaccinated per million inhabitants, right after Great Britain. After Serbia are Malta, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia, Romania, Ireland, Spain and Portugal.
When it comes to the region, Serbia ranks first in the number of vaccinated per million inhabitants. Behind them, there are Slovenia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia and Bulgaria.
According to the total number of vaccinated, Serbia is in the second place in the region, after Romania.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, announced this morning that another million doses of vaccines should arrive in Serbia by the end of March and February.
Dr. Rifat Rijad Zaid, president of the Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry of the Federation of B&H, from which, let us remind you, have put strong pressure on the authorities to start direct purchases with vaccine manufacturers, commented for "Avaz" on the arrival of vaccines in our country.
- Those doses of vaccines, in general, are not enough. If we are talking about 23,000 doses of "BioNTech" vaccine, that is for approximately 11,000 people, and, let's take the best case of 259,000, that is for approximately 125,000 people. In the Federation of B&H alone, there are 38,000 health workers in the public sector,and if we want to normalize the current situation in the whole B&H, then we must vaccinate not only health workers, but also the police, all priority professions and occupations, public services, and, of course, journalists, but above all, the top priority must be the elderly, because they have the highest mortality rate- warned Dr. Zaid.
He stressed that this situation only confirms that B&H and its entities have not done what was expected of them.
- The Council of Ministers and the entity governments should have signed separate contracts for the procurement of vaccines much earlier, and not just be a silent observer and rely on the COVAX mechanism or the alms of the European Union. Isn't it a sad fact that we in B&H have not had any vaccine so far, not even at the experimental level? I think we are unique in the world for that.
A shining example in that story, indeed, is Serbia, led by Vučić. We must not run away from congratulating our neighbors on the successful purchase of vaccines - said Dr. Zaid.
