Austria’s donation of 500,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to Bosnia arrived in Sarajevo on Tuesday.

According to Dusan Kojic, assistant to Bosnia’s Civil Affairs Minister, the donation represents a clear sign of the strong friendly relations between the two countries. He thanked Austria’s Ambassador, Ulrike Hartmann, and her government for her country’s support for Bosnia during the pandemic.

Kojic noted that Austria is the first country with which Bosnia has started the purchase of vaccines within the EU4health programme.

“With today’s donation, through all four procurement mechanisms, Bosnia received 2,714,610 doses. Of these total doses, we procured 232,020 doses through the Covax mechanism, 160,290 doses were procured through the EU4health action, 1,039,300 doses through direct procurement, while through donations, until today, we received 1,283,000 doses,” he said.

“Speaking of the Covax mechanism, we expect 100,600 doses of the BioNTech Pfizer vaccine this month and expect Covax to inform us of the number of allocations related to the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccine. In the EU4health action, we expect another 33,820 doses, out of a total of 214,110, while we are in the process of reaching an agreement with the Republic of Poland for the purchase of 190,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine and 190,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine,” he explained.

He added that another 1,373,100 doses are currently expected from donations.

Hartmann said she is glad that she could hand over Austria’s donation “to our friends in Bosnia, in our immediate neighbourhood with which we are closely connected in human and cultural terms.”