site.btaEvery Ten Minutes a Person in Bulgaria Suffers a Stroke

In Bulgaria every ten minutes a person suffers a stroke, said University Hospital St. Anna Sofia’s Neurology Clinic Head Rosen Kalpachki during a discussion on the issue in Sofia on Monday. The discussion was organized by the Association for Stroke and Aphasia in partnership with the Bulgarian Stroke Organisation. Stroke is the most common cause of death in the world and every year in Europe 800,000 people have a stroke, he said.

In Bulgaria, nearly 50,000 people had a stroke in 2023, and more than 5,500 of them died in hospital, the doctor added.

“Modern stroke treatment is provided in about 50 medical units in Bulgaria, which is quite enough, but even if we assume that they are well distributed, more than half of them do less than 10 thrombolytic treatments a year,” he said. No procedure more effective than thrombolysis has been discovered yet, Kalpachki underlined. To him, if thrombolysis is not applied, about 65% of stroke survivors remain disabled.

There is still no national stroke plan in Bulgaria, although three years ago Bulgaria expressed its solidarity with the Stroke Action Plan for Europe.