Bulgaria’s Health Minister: Decision on extending epidemic declaration at end of April
The outgoing government will make a decision after April 26 about whether to extend the Covid-19 epidemic declaration beyond the end of this month, if that by that time there is no new government in place to make the decision, Health Minister Kostadin Angelov told a news conference on April 16.
The weekly briefings on the Covid-19 situation in Bulgaria are continuing in spite of the decision by Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, announced on the night of April 15, to disband the national Covid-19 response staff.
Angelov defended Borissov’s decision as “logical” because Borissov’s term as the head of government was coming to an end.
The Health Minister said that Bulgaria was coping with the third wave of Covid-19, and said that this meant that the measures that had been taken were timely and produced results.
He said that there was a lasting trend of a decrease in the number of patients in hospital.
According to Angelov, the optimistic scenario for achieving collective immunity in Bulgaria was as the end of June, and the pessimistic one at the end of August.
This would depend on the vaccination process. If by the end of June, 65 per cent of the population – about 2.5 million people – were vaccinated, and by then three million people had recovered from the virus, the anti-epidemic measures would be minimal, he said.
Angelov said that on April 19, the Health Ministry’s expert councils would present their opinion on whether those who had a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine should receive a second.
He said that so far, the opinions expressed had been in favour of proceeding with a second dose of the vaccine.
Medicines Agency head Bogdan Kirilov said that the results of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) investigation into the AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines, because of very rare cases of thrombosis after vaccination, were expected on Thursday.
Kirilov said that in Bulgaria, there had been no cases of thrombosis after vaccination, which was why there had been no ban in the country on using these vaccines on people younger than 60.
He said that Bulgaria strictly followed the recommendations of the EMA.
For the rest of The Sofia Globe’s continuing coverage of the Covid-19 situation in Bulgaria, please click here.
The Sofia Globe’s coverage of the Covid-19 situation in Bulgaria is supported by the Embassies of Switzerland and Finland.
Please support independent journalism by clicking on the orange button below. 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:
