Bulgaria donates more than 2.8M doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Iran
Bulgaria has donated 2 830 440 doses of vaccines against Covid-19 to Iran, according to the Foreign Ministry.
The doses were delivered on April 9 and were welcomed at a ceremony attended by Bulgaria’s ambassador to Iran, Nikolina Kuneva.
“During а global pandemic the joint efforts and cooperation are the only way to recovery and resilience,” Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said.
Health Minister Assena Serbezova told Parliament in February that Bulgaria was looking to re-sell or donate vaccines, given the low uptake of vaccination against Covid-19 in Bulgaria.
At the time, Serbezova said that Bulgaria was in negotiations to donate vaccines to Iran and Uganda.
The Foreign Ministry did not say which brand of Covid-19 vaccine had been donated to Iran. Vaccines approved for use in Iran include the AstraZeneca and single-dose Jannsen.
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s (ECDC) online vaccine tracker, as of April 7 the uptake among the total population of Bulgaria of at least one dose of vaccine was 30 per cent, of completed vaccination 29.5 per cent and of a booster dose, 10.4 per cent.
In contrast, across the EU-EEA area, the uptake of at least one dose is 75.2 per cent, of completed vaccination 72.5 per cent and of a booster, 52.8 per cent.
Bulgarian Health Ministry statistics show that about nine out of 10 patients who died after testing positive for Covid-19 had not been vaccinated.
(Photos: Foreign Ministry)
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