site.btaPrime Minister: We Can Proudly Say We've Put an End to Third COVID-19 Wave in Bulgaria

May 4 (BTA) - "We can proudly say we have put an end to
the third wave of COVID-19 in Bulgaria," outgoing Prime Minister
 Boyko Borissov said on Tuesday as the country received a batch
of 273,780 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Borissov said the
Robert Koch Institute has delisted Bulgaria as a country of high
 epidemiological risk and has put it in a lower-risk group
alongside such nations as Greece and Malta.

He thanked the European Commission and the big EU nations for
the supply of vaccines.

Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said the so-called green lanes
which provide COVID-19 vaccination to anyone willing, are to
remain in place until May 9 without any change of procedure.
According to him, the duration of the green lanes may be
extended if there are enough vaccines for the respective stages
of the inoculation plan.

"We see that people in larger cities show huge interest [in
getting vaccinated]. Those in smaller towns exhibit far lower
interest," Angelov said.

Getting a second shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine should not pose
 any health hazard to those who had no complaints after the
first dose of the same brand, the minister said. He admitted
that demand for the AstraZeneca product is very low and part of
the supply will remain unused. The government has decided that
after all willing Bulgarians are immunized, the country will
provide "a sufficient amount" of vaccines to the Western Balkans
 and the Eastern Partnership states.

"I want to stress that the third wave of COVID-19 passed
virtually unnoticed in Bulgaria. Our medics coped. A huge thank
you to them," Angelov said, taking a journalist's question about
 the condition of the hospital system. RY/VE

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