The United States embassy in Croatia donated on Tuesday a machine for viral and bacterial sequencing to Zagreb's Fran Mihaljevic Hospital for Infectious Diseases, state agency Hina said, adding that the donation is worth more than 1 million kuna (€133,300).

The hospital’s director, Alemka Markotic, said that the machine would enable sequencing of a large number of samples with different variants of the coronavirus and would therefore be used in research and diagnostics.

Every day, about 250 people of all ages are examined at the hospital, with some 150 X-ray scans performed, Markotic said, adding that currently the average age of coronavirus patients in hospital care is 40-60. She noted that the new variant of the coronavirus is spreading fast and affecting vulnerable groups, including pregnant women. She repeated that pregnant women should get vaccinated. Markotic said that the Delta variant of the coronavirus is predominant in 99 per cent of cases currently found in Europe.

She pointed out that no vaccine or anti-epidemic measure is 100 percent effective, but that “together they will help us overcome the virus.”