Chief State Health Inspector: Janssen Covid-19 vaccine will be put into use in Bulgaria

Bulgaria will put into use the Janssen vaccine against Covid-19, Chief State Health Inspector Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev told a briefing after a meeting of the National Vaccination Headquarters on April 26.

"We have been awating the decision of the US Food and Drug Administration regarding the use of the Janssen vaccine and it is positive. In the meantime, 7 more European countries have made their decision and all of them are in the direction of using the vaccine without restrictions. Bulgaria has made the same decision," he said.

Bulgaria expects another delivery of 14 000 doses of the Janssen vaccine and together with the ones already in the country, the vaccines will be distributed during the holiday period and we will start using it through all possible channels,” Kunchev said.

He said that it was being considered to use the Janssen vaccine for those employed in the tourism industry and among the Roma population.

"We plan to direct part of the amount to the tourism industry staff, in order to cover the 80,000 people who so far have declared that they wanted to get the vaccine and to start immunization process before the start of the summer season. We are using the advantage that this vaccine is a single dose and immediately after it is administered, a document can be issued and it would be known which people working in this industry are already protected," Kunchev explained.

Assoc. Prof. Kunchev also said that 26 immunization points across the country will be open during the Easter holidays.

He confirmed that the “green corridors” for vaccination will be reopened.

In the coming weeks, there will be mainly supplies of mRNA vaccines, the director of the Medicines Agency, Bogdan Kirilov, said at the briefing.

On April 26, 138,060 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 14,400 of the AstraZeneca vaccines arrived in Bulgaria. The doses were immediately distributed to the regional health inspectorates.

The next delivery of vaccines against Covid-19 is expected on Wednesday, April 28, from Johnson and Johnson.