site.btaNational Campaign for Collection of Expired Medicines Launches

A national campaign to collect expired medicines was jointly organized by the pharmaceutical company Boiron and Kaufland Bulgaria, in partnership with the Ministry of Health. 

On Wednesday, October 16, expired medicines will be collected until 5:30 pm in the parking lot of the shop of the commercial chain in Sofia, which is located in the building of Central Sofia Market Hall in Sofia. 

On October 19, unnecessary medicines will be collected in the Sofia borough Mladost 3 at Filip Avramov boulevard. 

In Plovdiv, the initiative will be on October 26, and the medicines will be collected at 97 B Macedonia street. 

On November 2, it will be possible to hand over old medicines in Varna at 2 Hristo Smirnenski Street.

Resistance to antibiotics occurs after their incorrect use, frequent use of an antibiotic or due to premature interruption of therapy, said Chief State Health Inspector Dr Angel Kunchev when announcing the campaign. The final stage of severe antibiotic resistance is the lack of  treatment options, and in addition, in recent years, almost no new antibiotics have been created to replace those to which the patient is resistant. Antibiotics are used in agriculture, horticulture, etc. and studies of rivers in Germany show the presence of antibiotics in the water as well, he added, pointing out that this also contributes to the resistance to antibiotic treatment. These medicines should not fall into the soil, and one of the steps for this is organizing the collection of unused and expired medicines, explained Kunchev.

He urged people not to self-medicate, not to give their medicines to other people for whom they were not prescribed. Many steps are necessary, the first of which is already a fact – access to antibiotics is only with a written prescription. According to him, mass access to antibiotics is now only for people who have been prescribed by a doctor for a certain period and in a certain dose. Not only illegal, but also incorrect use of an antibiotic is dangerous, he added. Traditionally, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal are leaders in the use of antibiotics, Kunchev pointed out.

If pharmacies do not accept expired drugs, now is the time for people to take advantage and join the campaign, he said, adding that in order to return an expired medicine to a pharmacy, the pharmacy must have a contract with a company that will collect and process them in a safe way. 

Over five million lives were lost to antibiotic resistance according to World Health Organization data in 2019, said Persian Boukov, Head of Operations for Central and Eastern Europe. "There are legends that say that homeopathy is against antibiotics, but this is not true, as we believe that there are diseases that are mainly treated with antibiotics, but they should be prescribed only when necessary and by doctors," he added.