The authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Federation entity will directly procure 500,000 doses of the Chinese vaccine against coronavirus in an attempt to make up for the delay in inoculation, the entity health authorities confirmed on Thursday.

The director of the Federation’s public health institute, Siniša Skocibusic, confirmed that the entity government had closed a deal to commercially procure half a million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.

“All the administrative procedures have been completed,” said Skocibusic, adding that the delivery of the vaccine was expected within five days after the government pays for it.

Inoculation of the population is running behind in BiH because the country is receiving small quantities of the doses it had previously ordered and paid for from Western producers, and as a result a great deal of citizens have opted to go to Serbia to be vaccinated as vaccines are available and free for BiH citizens in that country.

The entity has in the meantime searched for a way to access the Russian and Chinese markets, which have opened up to commercial contracts.

The other BiH entity, Republika Srpska, had previously ordered 500,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia while the Federation entity has opted for the Chinese vaccine.

BiH has received tens of thousands of doses of vaccines through donations and Croatia has donated 30,000 of doses for that country.

The biggest donation to BiH has been from the US government, with 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Despite the tardiness in inoculation the epidemiological situation in BiH is stable and for days now the number of new cases has been in double digits only.

The European Union has classified BiH as a country in the green zone and is allowing citizens from that county to enter the EU with the appropriate certificate of vaccination or recovery from the disease or with a negative test.