Bulgaria busts scheme that sold Covid certificates to 250 unvaccinated people
Pre-trial proceedings have been opened in connection with a scheme in Bulgaria in which about 250 people were registered as having been vaccinated against Covid-19, although they had not received the jab – and were not even in the country when the vaccination supposedly took place.
In a statement on November 30, the Prosecutor’s Office said that those who had been falsely entered in the national vaccination register had paid between 200 and 400 leva (about 100 to 200 euro) to intermediaries.
The Prosecutor’s Office said that on November 29, search-and-seizure operations had been carried out at addresses and vaccination centres in the Plovdiv district towns of Rakovski and Assenovgrad.
Witnesses had been questioned and numerous documents seized, including more than 20 000 informed consent declarations.
Four people were taken into 24-hour custody, and investigations were continuing, the statement said. Of the three taken into custody, three are doctors and one is a dentist.
According to the November 30 update by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) vaccine tracker, Bulgaria continues to have the lowest rate of vaccination against Covid-19 in the EU-EEA area.
The cumulative uptake of full vaccination against Covid-19 in the total population of Bulgaria, as of November 30, was 25.3 per cent, while the EU-EEA figure was 66 per cent, the ECDC said.
Bulgaria’s Health Ministry emphasises daily that the vast majority of Covid-19 deaths and hospitalisations are among people who had not been vaccinated.
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