Skopje, 1 August 2024 (MIA) – The Institute for Public Health is examining whether reagents have been damaged after someone yesterday had turned off the refrigerators they were in, the Institute’s director Marija Andonovska confirmed to MIA on Thursday.

She said she expects the Public Prosecutor’s Office to open an investigation into who had access to the electrical fuses for the refrigerators, in which reagents for the whole country are stored. The case has been reported to all relevant state investigative bodies.

Andonovska said she believes the incident might have happened between 2:30 pm and 3:30 pm.

“The refrigerators and chambers are in locked premises. There is a wide corridor with laboratories to the left and to the right, where the electrical fuses for the refrigerators are also located. Fortunately, we were still at work and the cleaning lady, who arrives after the employers have left, noticed there was a problem with the electrical fuses. She was the one who notified everybody,” she told MIA. 

It is very suspicious, Andonovska noted, that only the electrical fuses connected to the refrigerators and the chambers, where the reagents for the whole country are stored, were turned off.

“If we hadn’t been there and hadn’t reacted at once, today we would have witnessed endangerment of the citizens’ lives and damages worth millions. We wouldn’t have had a single reagent,” the director said adding she expects the Public Prosecutor’s Office to open an investigation into the incident. 

In a press release Thursday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office said it is collecting documents and interviewing people with possible knowledge about the power being turned off from the chambers that store reagents for contagious and non-contagious diseases in the Institute for Public Health. 

“Due to the gravity of the possible harmful consequences on public health, which might have been caused by this act, and due to the possibility of it being a diversion or sabotage, public prosecutors in Skopje have been sent to the scene to investigate,” said the press release. 

MIA file photo