Croatia has donated 30,000 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine to Bosnia and Herzegovina to help it cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, Croatian Minister of the Interior, Davor Bozinovic, said after meeting with Bosnia and Herzegovina's Minister of Civil Affairs, Ankica Gudeljevic, in Zagreb on Monday.

The donation is based on the Croatian government’s decision to extend humanitarian assistance to neighbouring countries, namely Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo.

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Gudeljevic said that 15,000 doses would be allocated to the university hospital in Mostar and the remaining 15,000 would be distributed across the country.

Bozinovic said that no country could win the fight against the pandemic on its own.

The European Union and its member states are working together to help neighbouring countries deal with the health, social and economic aspects of the pandemic. To achieve the goal of global solidarity, the EU has set up the Covax mechanism to deliver and distribute Covid-19 vaccines to third countries.

“The EU is possibly the largest donor of vaccines through the Covax system and is committed to providing about 2.2 billion vaccine doses globally in 2021,” Bozinovic said.

Speaking of the vaccination campaigns in the neighbouring countries, Bozinovic said that Croatia would sign bilateral agreements on recognition of digital certificates of vaccination.

Asked if Croatia, like Slovenia, would sign an agreement with Serbia on mutual recognition of digital certificates, Bozinovic said he did not know what sort of agreement Serbia had signed with Slovenia. He noted that Slovenia had still not established a system for issuing EU Covid certificates, which Croatia put in place on 1 June.

Gudeljevic said that Bosnia and Herzegovina was still awaiting information from Serbia on the number of Bosnian citizens who had been vaccinated there.