Laboratory study: About 43% of Bulgaria’s population have encountered new coronavirus
About 43 per cent of the population of Bulgaria have encountered new coronavirus, according to a study done by Cibalab, one of the country’s largest laboratory chains.
The results of the study were announced at a June 21 Health Ministry news conference.
The study was based on 2600 samples from 38 places in Bulgaria, and was done through self-financing and voluntary work.
Pazardzhik had the highest percentage, at 62 per cent, followed by Yambol, 56 per cent.
According to the study, about a third of the population of Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia had antibodies, the result of an encounter with new coronavirus, according to Cibalab owner Dr Nedyalko Kalachev.
Caretaker Health Minister Stoicho Katsarov told the briefing that a procedure was being started to gather “absolutely all” the information available in the health network regarding people who had encountered the virus.
Katsarov said that on June 19, he had a video conference call with all software companies that write medical software.
Agreement had been reached on constructing a “technical place” where information would be gathered about people who had been vaccinated, who had been in hospital, who had been tested, while all available information about antibody testing from March 1 last year onwards would be extracted.
The information would be sorted by personal identity number, by districts and by municipalities.
Katsarov said that this approach had been chosen instead of conducting antibody tests on the entire population of Bulgaria.
“When you encounter the virus, you form antibodies, but after a while they decrease and may disappear completely. This does not mean that you do not have immunity and does not mean that you have not encountered the virus,” Katsarov said.
If antibody tests were done, only those who have recently encountered the virus would be identified, but those who had encountered the virus months ago would not be identified.
The new method will involve a one-step collection process, but the database will continue to be supplemented from then on.
All the information is expected to be obtained within a month. The price of the exercise is in the range of 10 000 to 15 000 leva, Katsarov said.
(Archive photo: Military Medical Academy)
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