Free flu jabs: vaccine has not yet reached all GPs in Bulgaria
150,000 doses have arrived in Bulgaria, but many practices are still waiting. Pharmacies are due to get about 100,000 doses in November – some 30,000 more than planned.
Symbolic image · Photo: Senior Airman Myles Stepp / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
Bulgaria's free flu vaccination campaign is off to a bumpy start. So far 150,000 doses of injectable vaccine have arrived in the country, BNT reported. Of these, 50,000 are earmarked for people over 75 and have already reached GPs. The latest batch of 100,000 doses, however, has so far reached only a few regions. "Interest is high, they are going fast," said a GP in Sofia's Boyana district who received more than 100 doses. A colleague in Dragalevtsi is still waiting and hopes for a delivery by the end of next week.
Kremena Parmakova, head of communicable disease control at the Health Ministry, said this year's vaccines would be delivered in stages over several weeks, until around mid-November. She advised doctors not to pass doses between practices but to secure the vaccines they ordered for their own patients. Around 15,000 doses from last year's national programme went unused.
Pharmacies, too, are fielding daily questions about the vaccine. According to Bogdan Kirilov, director of the Bulgarian Drug Agency, pharmacies will receive about 100,000 doses in November instead of the 70,000 initially planned. Experts consider November and December good months to get vaccinated: protection builds up in about 14 days, and Bulgaria's flu season usually starts in January.