"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. Borissov said the Robert Koch Institute has delisted Bulgaria as a country of high  epidemiological risk and has put it in a lower-risk group alongside such nations as Greece and Malta. He thanked the European Commission and the big EU nations for the supply of vaccines.

Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said the so-called green lanes which provide COVID-19 vaccination to anyone willing, are to
remain in place until May 9 without any change of procedure. According to him, the duration of the green lanes may be
extended if there are enough vaccines for the respective stages of the inoculation plan.

"We see that people in larger cities show huge interest [in getting vaccinated]. Those in smaller towns exhibit far lower interest," Angelov said.

Getting a second shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine should not pose any health hazard to those who had no complaints after the
first dose of the same brand, the minister said. He admitted that demand for the AstraZeneca product is very low and part of
the supply will remain unused. The government has decided that after all willing Bulgarians are immunized, the country will
provide "a sufficient amount" of vaccines to the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership states.

"I want to stress that the third wave of COVID-19 passed virtually unnoticed in Bulgaria. Our medics coped. A huge thank
you to them," Angelov said, taking a journalist's question about
 the condition of the hospital system. /BTA

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