According to the head of the laboratory that performs virus sequencing at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Sarajevo, Teufik Goletic, there ar 12 coronavirus strains circulating in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the moment and among them are some which are highly transmissible, such as the UK variant, B117.

Goletic also warned that the Czech strain is also present in the country but explained that it is not as dangerous as the one from the UK, although both are characterised by a high transmission rate.

Goletic pointed out that children can be a major factor in spreading the highly dangerous variants although they mostly have mild symptoms or none at all.

The situation in BiH is better than in some other countries where the South African variant was identified, he said.

“I would like to point out one fact that a specific mutation called E484K is also found in the British strain, which essentially enables it to avoid natural or acquired immunity after vaccination,” he explained.