According to health officials in Bosnia's two regions, 45 new cases of Covid-19 were reported over the past 24 hours. The Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS) entity recorded 31 cases, while the Bosniak-Croat Federation (FBiH) entity recorded another 14.
RS Health Minister, Alen Seranic, said health authorities there had tested 512 samples over the past 24 hours, including 31 which came back positive, making the total number of cases in RS rise to 661 since the beginning of the outbreak. Twenty patients have died so far, as a result of the disease, he added.
The 31 new patients include 17 men and 14 women, Seranic noted.
He added that seven health care professionals have been infected with the virus in this entity – three nurses and a doctor from the clinical centre in Banja Luka, and one employee each at state-run hospitals in the towns of Gradiska and Bijeljina, as well as a medical technician from a private clinic.
When it comes to the Federation (FBiH) half of the country, health officials there tested 779 samples over the past 24 hours, including 14 which came back positive, the FBiH Health Ministry’s crisis task force said on Thursday morning.
A total of 11,975 people have been tested so far by FBiH health authorities, and 784 came back positive for Covid-19.
Currently, FBiH has 583 active cases of Covid-19, 169 patients have recovered, and 32 have died.
In termsof the gender structure of Covid-19 patients, 54 percent are women, and 46 percent are men.
FBiH is administratively further divided into cantons. The largest number of reported cases to date are in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton (230), followed by Sarajevo Canton (108), Zenica-Doboj Canton (107), West-Herzegovina Canton (83), Tuzla Canton (81), and the Una-Sana Canton (76).
Bosnia’s Civil Affairs Ministry said that since the beginning of the outbreak in the country Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded a total of 1,413 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of Thursday noon.
The tally includes 661 cases in RS half of the country, 784 reported in FBiH half of the country, and another 18 in Brcko District – a small territory on Bosnia’s northern border with Croatia which does not legally belong to either of the two entities.
The country’s death toll to date is 54 – 20 in RS, 32 in FBiH, and two in Brcko District.