The Treaty of Bulgaria with "Eurotransplant" was canceled but will be extended to 2-3 weeks. This was announced by the Executive Director of the Transplantation Agency Mariana Stoyanova and just a day earlier the Health Ministry announced that "Bulgaria has a contract with Eurotransplant, it is not interrupted and Bulgaria continues to be a member of the organization".

The problem became public after the Pulmonary Hypertension Association had warned that the contract with Eurotransplant was terminated in 2017 and that two people had died at the beginning of 2018 while waiting for a lung transplant. In the waiting list there are another 16 people.

When Stoyanova was asked why the contract wasn't renewed earlier, Stoyanova did not want to comment. She admitted, however, that there was an institutional indifference - perhaps because she worked mostly with papers and did not have the clerks understanding how serious the situation of each of these patients was. Stoyanova added that three institutions are involved in the process of lung transplantation - the Transplant Agency, the Health Ministry and the NHIF.

The ministry has announced that the long-term solution to this problem is the development of the activity and training of people at Lozenetz Hospital and the University Hospital "St. Catherine "who have a license for heart and lung transplantation.

The Executive Agency for Transplantation said that 1008 Bulgarians are currently waiting for a kidney transplant, 30-40 people are waiting for a liver, and 28-32 for a heart. Over the past 5 years, there have been 256 transplants in Bulgaria, and half a century ago - just over 700. There are still no transplants of the lungs and pancreas in Bulgaria.

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