NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) and the Government of Hungary donated 30 ventilators to Bosnia and Herzegovina to help the country respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The donated respirators will be given to health institutions in accordance with the needs expressed,” said BiH’s Civil Affairs Minister Ankica Gudeljevic, explaining that institutions in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity will receive 20 of them and that the other ten will go to the Brcko District. Bosnia’s other semi-autonomous entity, the Federation (FBiH), has not expressed any need for more ventilators, she explained.

Gudeljevic reminded that in 2021 NATO donated transport chambers with negative pressure, infrared contactless thermometers and portable X-ray devices with auxiliary equipment to Bosnia, while Hungary donated 200,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine at the height of the pandemic in the country.

“I must emphasize that Hungary continues to support the European integration of BiH because the European project cannot be completed without the full membership of the countries of the Western Balkans, which includes BiH. This is a common security, political and economic interest, and that is why you can always count on Hungary's support,” Hungary’s Ambassador in BiH, Krisztian Posa, said during the handover.