A group of Bosnian scientists have successfully isolated the local strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus, popularly known as the new coronavirus, at Sarajevo's Veterinary Medicine Faculty lab for molecular-genetic and forensic research.

The successfully performed lab experiment means a giant step for the scientific community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it was fully sponsored by the Veterinary Medicine Faculty in the Bosnian capital.

According to the statement the faculty issued on Wednesday, this also means the baseline for many other multidisciplinary research and projects that will be performed in the future both locally and internationally.

The greater part of the work on the virus isolation, which was performed under the supervision of dr Teufik Goletic, the lab chief, was done by a junior scientific team composed dominantly by PhD students at the Veterinary Medicine Faculty's programme ‘Veterinary medicine and public healthcare’.

Bosnia's Academy of Arts and Sciences significantly contributed to the project's success, while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) showed a great interest in the project, said the Faculty.