site.btaHealth Minister: National COVID-19 Vaccination Plan to Be Ready by December 3

December 2 (BTA) - Addressing a briefing at the Council
of Ministers here Wednesday, Health Minister Kostadin Angelov
said that his Ministry's national COVID-19 vaccination plan will
 be ready by Thursday and will be presented for approval at the
next Cabinet meeting. The first four freezers for storing the
COVID-19 vaccine  produced by Pfizer will be delivered to the
regional health inspectorates of Sofia and Bourgas (on the Black
 Sea) by this week's end, he also said. The other regional
health inspectorates across Bulgaria are yet to be provided with
 such freezers.

The Minister said that Prof. Krasimir Gigov, Director General of
 the Bulgarian Red Cross, has been nominated to head the
coordination council tasked with the national vaccination plan's
 implementation.

Bulgaria's first batch of the COVID-19 vaccine is expected by
the end of this year or in early 2021, Angelov recalled.
Bulgaria will get the same vaccines as the other EU Member
States. Anyone wishing to be vaccinated will be able to do so
free of charge. The vaccination will not be compulsory, he
underscored.

"The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is working on a Bulgarian
vaccine for coronavirus, but we have no information when and how
 it will be ready," Angelov said.
 
At its regular meeting held via video conference on Wednesday,
the Council of Ministers adopted a National Pandemic
Preparedness Action Plan. The Health Minister said that the
document was drafted using guidelines and recommendations of the
 World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control, as well as the experience gained in
Bulgaria.

The Plan's main targets are limiting the morbidity and reducing
the mortality from infections, ensuring the best possible
treatment, and providing the public with constant and reliable
information on the pandemic and the measures taken, Angelov
explained. The Plan is of general character in view of the fact
that a pandemic can be caused by various pathogens. This is a
programme document to serve as a basis for the State's actions
in a pandemic, as a foundation on which specific pandemic plans
for a specific disease will be drafted, the Health Minister
noted.

Taking a question about funding for the Plan's implementation,
Angelov said that over 2 billion leva have been allocated thus
far for handling the COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria.

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On Wednesday afternoon, the Health Minister said that 24-hour delivery of low-molecular-weight heparin has been made available. Three hundred thousand doses have been provided and they will be used throughout Bulgaria, and in a few days they will go on the hospital market. Oral anticoagulant was used during the period when there were difficulties in supplying hospitals, the Minister said. RY,RI/DS,DT


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