The Vaccination Campaign in Bulgaria Has Stalled due to a Lack of Trust

 According to the Bulgarian health minister Angelov, Some GPs advise their patients not to get vaccinated.

Bulgaria is the country with the lowest vaccination rate in the EU - 1.2 doses per 100 people.

For comparison, the average in the EU is 5.3, and in the UK - 24.7.

The reason for this lag is the distrust in the institutions, writes Bloomberg in an analysis.

A few weeks before the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, confidence in the government is at a very low level.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov is adamant that the campaign is going according to plan, but opinion polls show that more than half of Bulgarians do not intend to be vaccinated.

 The campaign is being undermined by a lack of trust in institutions, as well as fake news about vaccines, Health Minister Kostadin Angelov claims.

First-line workers - doctors, teachers and others - refuse to be vaccinated, even though they have previously stated their wish. "We are ready to work more intensively," commented the director of "Pirogov" hospital Asen Baltov.

 "The problem comes when the people who need to be vaccinated don't show up," he added.

According to Baltov, only 1/3 of those planned for vaccination in "Pirogov" came to be vaccinated.

 Some GPs advise their patients to avoid vaccines, the health minister added.

Alpha Research surveys show that only 10% of Bulgarians are ready to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Compared to a similar survey in December, there is a decrease of 4 percentage points.

Another poll from January shows that at least 20% of Bulgarians do not think vaccines are safe, and 10% say side effects have not been sufficiently studied.