site.btaQuarantined People with COVID-19 Won't Be Able to Vote in Local Elections - Health Minister

Because of texts in the Health Act, according to which COVID-19 is a dangerous infection, people under quarantine will not be able to vote in the upcoming local elections on October 29, Health Miniser Hristo Hinkov told Bulgarian National Television. He added that the Ministry had proposed that these texts be dropped, but unfortunately the MPs did not vote on them before going into recess prior to the elections.

There were a total of 376 new confirmed cases of coronavirus across the country on Thursday, with 5,472 active cases, according to coronavirus.bg.  

Commenting the problems with electronic prescriptions, the Health Minister said that a change in the regulation is being considered because there are objective circumstances that can lead to a doctor not being able to write a prescription for their patients. According to him, this concerns a small circle of physicians, mainly from the emergency medicine sector. 

"By the end of the month we have decided to find out whether we will make this change. The regulation is ready, we will upload it on the website and a public discussion will follow within 14 days. The compromise with the paper prescription for emergency medicine medics has been made to be flexible and to follow the principle of not leaving a patient without medicine. This does not mean stepping back. We are adamant that digitisation must go ahead. Moreover, objective data show that things are getting better," explained Minister Hinkov. 

Hinkov added that for two years now Bulgarian physicians have been working in a hybrid model and issue prescriptions both on paper and electronically. However, this has not shed light on all the problems. 

There is also lack of control in pharmacies, where the drugs are dispensed and the prescriptions are filled, he said, adding that his Ministry's efforts will be focused in this direction as well. Additional control measures - electronic or otherwise - will be introduced, he also said. 

Commenting the problem with the shortage of certain medicines and pharmacists not being able to offer a replacement, the Health Minister explained that doctors can note in the prescriptions if they want a generic replacement. "If a particular prescribed medicine is missing, it is not the fault of the doctors, it is the problem of the pharmacy network, the traders who import medicines and then export them, that is, we have problems that we need to solve at the regulatory level," the Minister said.