Approximately 2 million doses of coronavirus vaccines will be sufficient for the first wave of vaccination in Bosnia's Federation (FBiH) entity, the head of the FBiH Health Institute Sinisa Skocibusic said Thursday without saying if and when the announced 500,000 Sinopharm vaccines would arrive in this entity.

Not saying when the first doses of the announced half a million Sinopharm vaccine doses would arrive in this entity, Skocibusic said that 300,000 vaccines from various producers have already arrived in this entity via donations, Covax mechanism or the EU4HEALTH programme.

Speaking about the FBiH's expressed preference for the Sinopharm vaccine as opposed to some other producers, such as the Russian Sputnik vaccine, Skocibusic said that health centre directors from this entity said they are having trouble administering the Sputnik vaccine because of its storage requirements, noting that a vial of the Sputnik vaccine must be stored at the temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius and that they must be used in 2 hours after they are taken out of the refrigerator.

A similar situation is with other vaccines like Pfizer.

Another problem they had with the Sputnik vaccine is that their practice is to deliver the second shot within 21 days after the first one, but the agreement they received from the producer said they could deliver the second shot, which is different from the first one, within 90 days.

The Head of the health institute noted that over 60 percent of the vaccines ordered via Covax and EU4HEALTH are coming to this entity, adding that 40,800 AstraZeneca vaccines are coming to Bosnia in the following weeks via the Covax mechanism and they will be divided among the FBiH and the Republika Srpska entity, as well as the District Brcko.