Why was Bulgaria's coronavirus task force dissolved?

A day after the National Operational Headquarters against Covid-19 (the coronavirus task force) was stood down, the outgoing Minister of Health Kostadin Angelov on April 16 explained that the decision was made to allow the new Prime Minister to choose the experts he/she will work with.

It became clear from the health authorities that Bulgaria is dealing with the third wave of the virus, but a new variant has already been detected – a Bulgarian one.

The outgoing Minister of Health Kostadin Angelov called for no politics in the healthcare.

"It is absolutely logical for this headquarters to be dissolved at the end of the term in office of Prime Minister Borissov, as it is a supra-institutional structure that coordinates state bodies. It is quite logical for the next prime minister, whoever he or she is, to set up such an advisory body", the Minister of Health said.

There is already information about the emergence of a new variant of the virus: a Bulgarian. There are now two women in the country - aged 60 and 65 with the UK variant, in which a mutation was observed. However, the current vaccines are effective against it.

"For now, this is a strain which is carefully monitored. We do not expect, despite this change in amino acids, to lead to what frightens the world community - to look for a new vaccine and a new genetic method," said Todor Kantardzhiev, National Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases.

A total of more than 5.5 million vaccines are expected to arrive in Bulgaria by the end of June, more than 75% of which will be RNA ones. And there will be clarity on how to proceed with the second dose of Astra Zeneca on Monday:

We currently have opinions from several expert councils on what to do, we will look at them and tell all Bulgarians who received a dose of Astra Zeneca before the date of their second dose, we will tell them what to do. Preliminary opinions are that all expert councils advise people to have the second shot of Astra Zeneca," Kostadin Angelov said.

He also laid out three options for reaching herd immunity: optimistic - by the end of June; pessimistic - by the end of August and realistic - by the end of July.

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