Kostadin Angelov

Bulgaria's National Assembly has enacted a ban on the sale and use of vapes and heated tobacco products by individuals under the age of 18. The new law also prohibits the offering of these products to minors. Kostadin Angelov from GERB, a key proponent of the legislative changes, indicated that future efforts will focus on regulating energy drinks.

Bulgaria's Minister of Health, Prof. Hristo Hinkov, has issued a crucial order prohibiting the export of essential medications, encompassing insulin, blood sugar-lowering drugs, and antibiotics for children. The decision, effective from today, November 2, will remain in place until December 31, 2023, aiming to address the alarming shortage of life-saving medicines.

Bulgaria has refused to supply the fifth vaccine approved by the European drug regulator against COVID-19 of the American company Novavax, and the decision was made by the caretaker government in August. This became clear from the answers of the Minister of Health Asena Serbezova to the GERB MP Kostadin Angelov (former Minister of Health) during the Friday parliamentary control.

A seemingly formal decision taken by previous parliaments - MPs quarantined and isolated because of COVID to be able to participate in online sessions - has, as expected, become a "talk" for and against the green certificate, as well as whether it should apply to the members of parliament - to enter the parliament building.

There are reports of illegal practices and inpatient fraud in Pirogov emergency hospital. The inspection is underway there, as well as in other hospitals across the country. It has nothing to do with a purge, but there are several problems in the provincial and Sofia hospitals, caretaker deputy Minister of Health Dimitar Petrov said in the studio of Nova TV.

Since October 2020, the Ministry of Health (headed then by Prof. Kostadin Angelov) has known that at least several transplants on people with forged documents have been performed at VIP Lozenets Hospital. But at the top level there was no response to what was happening, Capital  weekly writes.

Caretaker Minister of Health, Dr. Stoycho Katsarov, assigned the National Centre for Public Health and Analysis (NCPHA), within 30 days, to perform an analysis of the activities related to public health services in the period from March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021, in the context of the epidemic caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Prominent Bulgarian economist Vladimir Karolev, who disappeared on May 9 under the Todorka peak in Pirin Mountain, was found on May 10 a little after midnight, the Mountain Rescue Service in Bansko told BNR-Radio Blagoevgrad. Karolev was found in a critical condition near Zhabeshko Lake. He was unconscious and carried down the mountain by the mountain rescuers.

"We can proudly say we have put an end to the third wave of COVID-19 in Bulgaria," outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on Tuesday as the country received a batch of 273,780 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Close to 274 000 doses of BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 were delivered to Bulgaria on May 4, Bulgarian National Radio reported.

The doses, along with those of the AstraZeneca vaccine, will be available in the "green corridors" for Covid-19 vaccinations, open during the April 30 - May 9 holiday period.