The District Public Prosecutor's Office in the northwestern town of Prijedor is looking into the case of the more than 1,300 Sputnik V vaccines that spoiled due to a power outage.

The vaccines that were supposed to be used for the re-vaccination of people over the age of 65 in the town are now useless, as the cold chain for storing them was interrupted by the power outage.

“There was a disruption in the temperature in the freezer in relation to the temperature necessary for storing vaccines,” the head of the Prijedor Health Health Center, Slobodan Javor, said in a news conference on Tuesday.

The local prosecutor’s office said it is now “checking who is responsible for the problem” and whether there were any omissions in the process.

Now some 140 locals in Prijedor who were vaccinated the morning after the incident took place fear for their health, while another 1,500 locals are missing their second shot because there are no vaccines available at the moment.

The Prime Minister of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity, Radovan Viskovic, also urged authorities to investigate the issue.

“In a situation when Republika Srpska is also struggling to protect the health of its citizens, enable and accelerate the delivery of paid vaccines for the needs of the population in Republika Srpska, we must not and cannot allow the irresponsible behaviour and actions of individuals to endanger immunization in the Republika Srpska and endanger the protection of the health of our citizens,” the RS Government stated.