The pandemic revealed what kind of politicians are representing the citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, in this case, deciding on their lives, new Health Minister in Sarajevo Canton Haris Vranic told N1, criticising the way the state and entity authorities are dealing with this issue.

The minister who took office a few weeks ago said the ruling coalitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its Federation entity, which Sarajevo Canton is a part of, left the citizens stranded, while the rest of the world was trying to find a solution for the pandemic and cope with it.

“The only thing they were dealing with was suspicious procurements of the equipment of questionable quality. The same situation is happening with the vaccines. Although various structures have been promising us the vaccines for a while now, BiH is the only country in Europe and wider that has not acquired a single vaccine,” the minister warned in an interview.

“Unfortunately the cost of the waiting will be the lives of some of our fellow citizens who will not live to get the vaccine and be saved from this wicked disease,” he added.

According to him, it would be logical if the state-level authorities were in charge of negotiations and purchase of vaccines instead of lower entity-level institutions. But, Sarajevo Canton decided to deal with this on its own.

“Since the state and entity levels (of authority) showed they have no will or knowledge to deal with it, the Sarajevo Canton Government secured money for the vaccines for its citizens,” said Vranic, adding that cantonal authorities already created the vaccination plan in accordance with Europe's guidelines.

The minister also stressed there was no need to instigate panic about so-called “English variant” of the coronavirus and that citizens should just stick to the measures of wearing a mask and keeping a distance in public as well as maintaining their hygiene.

According to the minister, the epidemiological measures currently in effect are not likely to be mitigated so soon despite rather a favourable situation with the virus spread.

“We don't want to risk getting the situation out of control and having the healthcare system collapse,” he underlined.