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Bosnia Seeks Help from Germany in Acquiring COVID-19 Vaccines through COVAX

VOA News

   Bosnia and Herzegovina reached out to Germany on Tuesday for help in
   speeding up the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine through the COVAX vaccine
   cooperative and expressed frustration with the World Health
   Organization-administered program.

   At a joint news conference in Berlin with his German counterpart, Heiko
   Mass, Bosnian Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic said Bosnia had paid
   into the global vaccine-sharing COVAX plan but had not yet seen a
   delivery of vaccines under the program.

   "Our citizens are, rightly so, unhappy, and that is why I asked
   Minister Maas today to help us mediate with the European Commission to
   solve this problem," Turkovic said.

   Maas said COVAX is scheduled to deliver vaccines to 140 countries by
   the end of May, among them Bosnia, which is scheduled to receive
   130,000 doses.

   Maas said he could understand that the timeline for COVAX deliveries
   was seen as not quick enough for nations that are anxiously waiting for
   them. He also said there are countries that are offering vaccines to
   nations "in return for good political conduct," but he did not name
   specific countries.

   Ethnically divided Bosnia launched partial inoculations last month
   after the autonomous Serb Republic received its first batch of 5,000
   Russian Sputnik V vaccine and health workers in neighboring Serbia were
   invited to be inoculated.

   Last week, Serbia also donated 10,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine
   to Bosnia's other region, the federation dominated by Bosniaks and
   Croats.

   The Bosniak-Croat Federation is so far relying on getting its share of
   2.1 million shots ordered by the state through COVAX and from the
   European Union.

   Meanwhile, Bosnia reported a spike in coronavirus fatalities on Tuesday
   with another 48 deaths, raising the total to more than 5,000
   coronavirus deaths in the country of 3.5 million.