Covid-19 in Bulgaria: Omicron variant found in all 275 samples – NCIPD
Bulgaria’s National Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (NCIPD) said on April 1 that it has found the Omicron coronavirus strain in each of the 275 samples taken from Covid-19 patients in the country.
The samples had been taken over a period of time ranging from March 1 to March 17 and came from 20 out of Bulgaria’s 28 districts.
The Omicron strain has been the dominant coronavirus variant in Bulgaria since mid-January, but this was the first time that a batch of samples sequenced by NCIPD did not find a single case of the Delta variant of the virus.
As of March 21, five patients in the NCIPD sample group had died, 39 were in hospital, 200 were undergoing home treatment and 31 had recovered.
NCIPD said that the BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron strain was found in 204 cases, BA.1.1 in 43 samples and BA.1 in 28 cases.
The data indicated that the BA.2 subvariant had become the dominant one in Bulgaria, having been found in 74.2 per cent of samples in this batch, rising from 46.7 per cent in the previous batch announced on March 25 and 31.6 per cent in the batch announced on March 18.
The largest number of samples in this batch came from the city of Sofia (66), followed by the districts of Varna (64), Plovdiv (45) and Rousse (29).
(Photo: Military Medical Academy)
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:
