Bulgaria is destroying large quantities of doses of vaccines against COVID-19 that have expired and does not plan to replenish the stocks, the Bulgarian interim Minister of Health Asen Medzhdiev said on Sunday.
“Right now, there are no people that are getting vaccinated”, said the interim health minister in an interview with state television. “Huge amounts” of expired vaccines have already been destroyed, and an additional 2.8 million doses should be removed this year, the minister added.
Medzhdiev says he told the European Commission that Bulgaria wants to terminate the contract with the German-American manufacturer of the new mNRA vaccines BioNTech/Pfizer, according to which his country is obliged to buy the vaccine against the coronavirus until 2025.
Bulgaria has the lowest vaccination rate in the European Union. Only 30 percent of the population of 6.5 million have basic immunization against the virus, according to official data. There are no mandatory protective measures against the virus from mid-November 2022.
