Bulgaria’s Health Minister approves form for Covid-19 booster dose certificate
Bulgaria’s Health Minister Assena Serbezova has approved the samples of the EU Digital Covid Certificate of a booster dose against Covid-19, the ministry said on December 16.
All European green certificates for a booster dose against Covid-19 will be regenerated and may be downloaded from the National Health Information System portal https://www.his.bg/bg/dgc from December 20 2021, the statement said.
This is necessary because the European Commission has changed the way the number of booster doses in the EU’s digital vaccination certificate is indicated, Bulgaria’s Health Ministry said.
Under the new requirements, which come into force across the EU on January 1 2022, the booster dose for two-dose vaccines will be marked as “3/3” in the certificate, and for single-dose vaccines as “2/2”.
Everyone who wants to download their new-model European certificate may visit the National Health Information System portal from December 20, entering their personal identity number (known by its Bulgarian abbreviation, EGN), their identity card number and the national reference number of the booster dose or that number of any previously-generated certificate.
The Health Ministry said that until now, there was no consensus in the EC on the designation of a booster dose in the European green certificate and individual countries could decide for themselves how to indicate the additional vaccine.
Bulgaria, like other European countries, has adopted the approach of designating it as “3/2” for single-dose vaccines and as “2/1” for single-dose vaccines.
The introduction of common rules for the designation of revaccination in the EU requires reconfiguration of Bulgaria’s system for generating European green certificates, which was built by state-owned IT firm Informatsionno Obsluzhvane under a contract with the Ministry of Health.
The Ministry of Health said that the vaccination certificates issued so far will continue to be valid throughout the EU, even if the booster dose is indicated in the document in a different way from that adopted in the new rules.
According to the December 16 report by the unified information portal, so far 194 303 people in Bulgaria have received a booster dose of vaccine, including 9482 in the past day.
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