Bulgaria expects to receive 4.5M doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine
Bulgaria expects to receive 4.5 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine against Covid-19, enough to vaccinate 2.5 million people in the country, Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said on January 8.
The first delivery will be 500 000 doses, Angelov said.
The European Medicines Agency is currently dealing with the application for approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
On January 7, Bulgaria’s Health Minister published a provisional schedule of vaccine deliveries from January to July, showing that in the first seven months of 2021, a million BioNTech-Pfizer and 500 000 Moderna vaccines are to be delivered to the country.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said that about 310 million leva (about 158.5 million euro) had been spent on Covid-19 vaccines alone, while there also had been spending on front-line doctors, nurses, general practitioners, medicines and disinfectants.
Borissov emphasised again that vaccination against Covid-19 will be voluntary and free of charge.
Professor Todor Kantardzhiev, head of the National Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases and a member of the national operational HQ against Covid-19, said in a January 8 television interview that the AstraZeneca vaccine was at a very advanced stage towards approval.
“In the best-case scenario, we will have 1.5 million people vaccinated by August,” Kantardzhiev said.
He said that so far, the quantities of vaccines that the EU had allocated for Bulgaria were more than the country needed.
Kantardzhiev said that the side-effects of Covid-19 vaccines were the same as the side-effects of influenza vaccines.
(Archive photo: Brian Hoskins/freeimages.com)
The Sofia Globe’s coverage of the Covid-19 situation is supported by the Embassies of Switzerland and Finland.
The Sofia Globe is an independent media outlet, free of ties to any corporate, political or other media groups. For as little as three euro a month or the equivalent in other currencies, you can support The Sofia Globe via patreon.com and get access to exclusive subscriber-only content. Please click on the button below:
