Despite the fact that coronavirus vaccines have been available to Serbian citizens since the beginning of the year, about a half of the population has not been vaccinated yet. Young people account for the smallest portion of the immunized, and in a bid to boost vaccination the authorities introduced fees, shopping vouchers and, as of recently, COVID passes.<\/p>
Over the past two months, journalists of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia<\/em> (CINS) have sent 79 requests for access to information of public importance \u2013 to the Ministry of Health<\/em>, Institute of Public Health of Serbia Dr Milan Jovanovi\u0107 Batut<\/em>, and to hospitals and public health institutes in Serbia. We asked whether the hospitalized and deceased COVID-19 patients had been vaccinated and if they had, what vaccine they had received. The hospitals in question are on the Batut Institute<\/em>\u2019s list because they have ventilators<\/a> for treating the most endangered patients.<\/p> Twenty-one institutions delivered the requested Information, while the others either did not reply or told us to contact other institutions.<\/p> We did not receive data from, among others, the country\u2019s major healthcare centers where COVID-19 patients are being treated as well, such as the Clinical Hospital Center Be\u017eanijska Kosa<\/em>, Clinical Hospital Center Zvezdara<\/em>, Clinical Center Vojvodina<\/em>, and Clinical Center Ni\u0161<\/em>. The Ministry of Health<\/em> told us on two occasions that it did not have this information, even though certain hospitals said that they forwarded the data to the Ministry<\/em>. The Ministry<\/em> then told us to address Batut<\/em>, whose representatives said that they did not have the requested data.<\/p> The data we received nevertheless show that a considerably bigger number of hospitalized and deceased COVID-19 patients in Serbia had not been vaccinated.<\/p> Among those who, in spite of vaccination, were treated in hospitals or died from the coronavirus, the majority had received the Chinese Sinopharm<\/em> vaccine. As CINS reported earlier, out of the available vaccines, by July 21 the most used vaccine was none other than the Chinese one, with 3.4 million administered doses.<\/p> The institutions that kept these records did so in different ways and in different periods. Some had detailed data, i.e. what vaccines the hospitalized and deceased had received, while others disclosed only percentages.<\/p> That is why we will present the data below as we received them from different health institutions. We will regularly update the article with new data.<\/p> The Clinic for Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the Clinical Center of Serbia<\/em> has been registering since September 9 whether its hospitalized COVID-19 patients were vaccinated or not. By request of the Ministry of Health<\/em>, they made a cross-section of the situation on September 9. On that day, there were 89 hospitalized patients, most of whom had not been vaccinated. From September 9 to 15 about 50 more COVID patients were admitted, more than half of whom had been vaccinated, predominantly with the Sinopharm<\/em> shot.<\/p>Thank you for reposting CINS articles! When doing so, you need to state that you have taken the story over from the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, and provide a link to the article you are reposting.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n
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Belgrade, Clinic for Infectious and Tropical Diseases<\/h2>