The renovation of outpatient clinics of the Zagreb hospital for infectious diseases will begin in 2022 and there are plans for the construction of a new, modular building with additional isolation units, the Vecernji List daily reported on Monday.

The new facility will cover an area of 15,000 square metres and it will be finished in four to five years, Vecernji List said.

One could say that a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic is that it has helped raise awareness about the importance of Zagreb’s infectious diseases hospital. The original hospital was built in 1893 and the new hospital will be built on the same location in Zagreb’s wider downtown area.

The director of the “Fran Mihaljevic” University Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Alemka Markotic, said funds for the project, worth approximately HRK 350 million, had already been secured through the national reconstruction and development fund and partially through the World Bank.

While the plans for the new facility are underway, one of the old buildings is being renovated. The newly renovated building will serve as an outpatient clinic and the project is worth HRK 50 million, all financed with a grant from the European Regional Development Fund.

“The project documentation is in the final stage and renovation will begin at the end of spring,” Vecernji List cited Markotic as saying.