prijava
MOSTAR, December 29 (FENA) - Director of the Public Health Institute of the Federation of BiH Siniša Skočibušić said that omicron has not yet been recorded in BiH, emphasizing that existing measures are insufficiently applied and will have to be intensified due to the spread of a new coronavirus variant.
“There are no recorded cases of omicron in BiH so far, but samples are taken regularly and sent for sequencing, so we can expect that it will come soon in our country, bearing in mind that in neighboring countries, Croatia and Serbia, the first cases have already been recorded. The current dominant variant of the delta virus will probably now be flooded with omicron, so that in a way indicates that we will share part of the responsibility, i.e. part of the global trend regarding the development of the pandemic,” said Skočibušić in an interview with FENA.
He added that the Crisis Staff of the FBiH Ministry of Health yesterday extended all existing measures and when you look at them you can see that they really regulate all areas that apply to the new genetic variant of omicron.
Commenting on the statement that European countries have been tightening measures in recent days while BiH citizens act as if the coronavirus does not exist, Skočibušić said that the fact is that people do not adhere to the measures, i.e. that the competent institutions do not implement the measures themselves, but they will have to intensify.
He added that it can be seen that in the countries of Western Europe and in the neighborhood, people wear masks significantly more, and that vaccination rate is better than in our country.
Asked about Covid certificates, he said that in the ninth month, the FBiH Government, at a meeting of all directors of public health institutes, health ministers and cantonal government prime ministers, instructed the cantons to work on creating registers of the vaccinated people for the Covid-19 digital certificate.
“We have been informed that the Council of Ministers of BiH has made a decision to start the process of joining the EU Covid certificates at the state level. Yesterday, at the session of the FBiH Crisis Staff, we made a decision to remind the cantonal governments and ministries again that they must prepare their records, which will then be included in the state record. Unfortunately, our citizens did not get involved through this system and that is a consequence of all these problems that we are facing today in BiH,” said the Director of the Public Health Institute of the Federation of BiH.
According to him, the QR code will certainly be available for BiH citizens who have been vaccinated in our country, but they are not satisfied with the dynamics with which this activity is being carried out.
He stated that his wish is that the recommendations of the Expert Advisory Body for Immunization are applied more and that all citizens can be boosted after only three months.
Asked whether the introduction of compulsory vaccination is being considered, given that there are about 30 percent of fully vaccinated citizens in FBiH, he said that there is great resistance to such an idea.
“I must say that we analyze how it is in the neighborhood. We will certainly not be at the forefront of mandatory vaccination,” said the director of the Institute of Public Health of the Federation of BiH.
(FENA) A. B.
