Bulgaria’s Chief Health Inspector: UK Covid-19 Strain Will Spill over to Entire Europe

Bulgaria is 27th in coronavirus morbidity and 6th in mortality rate in the EU. We top mortality charts in the Balkans. The highest morbidity rates are documented in Vratsa, Pleven, Pernik.

That's what the Chief State Health Inspector, Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev said during the traditional briefing on the spread of the coronavirus in the country, BGNES reports.

The developments in Europe do not inspire optimism at all, unlike what we are seeing in Bulgaria. The new strain does not lead to a more severe course of the disease, the bad thing is that its transmission rate is several times higher, Kunchev said.

Our colleagues in Europe are extremely worried about the situation in the UK and Ireland. The new strain accounts for  75% of the new infections in the UK in just a month, in Ireland it is 40%. All those who test positive there are diagnosed with the new strain, or,to put it more correctly, a new variant of coronavirus.

The picture is similar in the Netherlands. In Bulgaria so far, 10 Covid-19 patients have infected between 5 and 6 people. Currently in the UK, 10 people infect 27. This is what about to happen throughout Europe, informs Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev. I hope this will happen in Bulagria later, so that hospitals are more prepared to cope with a new wave of patients who will need treatment, Kunchev said.

He was adamant that if we lift the preventive anti-epidemic measures abruptly, we would very soon face the new coronaviru variant. There is no way that the new strain has not emerged in Bulgaria and the Balkans, he stressed.

In theopinion of the Director of Pirogov Emergency Hospital  Prof. Asen Baltov, the so-called "British strain" is already in Bulgaria, although there are no official data to confirm it.

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