Covid-19 in Bulgaria: Two hospitals to be probed over deaths of young women
Bulgaria’s Medical Supervision Executive Agency has begun investigations at two hospitals into the deaths of two women, aged 33 and 21, respectively, who had tested positive for Covid-19.
The investigations are being conducted at the Dr Atanas Dafovski Hospital in Kurdzhali and the St Ivan Rilski Hospital in Razgrad.
While both women had Covid-19, neither had concomitant diseases. Their deaths were among 51 reported on November 3 by Bulgaria’s national information system on Covid-19.
Separately, Bulgaria’s Health Minister Kostadin Angelov announced that as of November 3, twenty employees of the National Centre for Public Health and Analysis would be available to the Sofia regional health inspectorate to assist in speeding up the rate of inspections.
“The situation is complicated, the number of positive samples in Sofia is constantly increasing,” Angelov said.
The national information system report on November 3 said that of 2427 newly-confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, 979 were in the city of Sofia.
In the past month, 22 Sofia regional health inspectorate staff have tested positive.
The rules require that all infected and contact persons must be notified in writing about instructions for quarantine. Given the number of regional health inspectorate staff in Bulgaria’s capital city who have tested positive, employees from other institutions would be seconded to assist for as long as necessary, Angelov said.
He said that by November 6, mobile facilities for testing for new coronavirus infection should be installed in front of all state medical institutions.
Angelov said that the ministry’s national logistics centre had gone into operation. The role of the centre is to overcome shortcomings in communication among institutions, medical establishments, regional health inspectorates and emergency medical care centres.
He said that inspections of laboratories and medical establishments were continuing and where violations were found, sanctions would be imposed.
Angelov announced the inspections of the laboratories on November 2, saying that delays in reporting results, sometimes up to two to three days, were causing distortions in some daily reports.
He said that as a result of such delays in reporting positive tests for Covid-19, the November 3 report would show a high figure for these results that included accumulated figures from previous days.
Meeting on November 3, the district crisis staff in Vidin decided that from November 4 to 12, restaurants and bars in the district must close by 11.30pm.
In the district of Pleven, from November 4 restaurants and cafes must close by 10.30pm, the district crisis staff decided.
Teams of volunteers will assist the regional health inspectorate in Pleven and at the University Hospital in the city.
In Plovdiv, the Soho night club is to be fined 3000 leva (about 1533 euro) for staying open after 11.30pm, in violation of the district’s curfew rule for restaurants and bars, the district administration announced on November 3.
(Photo: The Dr Atanas Dafovski Hospital in Kurdzhali)
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The Sofia Globe’s coverage of the Covid-19 situation in Bulgaria is supported by the Embassies of Switzerland and Finland.
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