Bulgaria to receive 'solidarity' vaccines, says PM

Bulgaria will receive more than 1.2 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine produced by BioNTech and Pfizer in the second quarter, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on Friday.

Most European Union member states agreed late on Thursday to share part of 10 million BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine deliveries with Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia, countries they said were most in need.

But Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis on Friday criticized that deal as unbalanced, saying he did not understand how the European Union could agree on such a plan when the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia opposed it, he told CTK news agency.

Bulgaria, which has the slowest inoculation rate in the EU, will receive 1.26 million doses out of 2.85 million so-called “solidarity vaccines” for the five EU members.

“This is good news for us and for all of Europe. It shows that member states can show solidarity,” Borissov said in a post on his Facebook page.

The Balkan country initially opted out of purchasing its full allotment of Pfizer shots and ordered more of the AstraZeneca vaccine. It has suffered from a supply crunch caused by cuts and delays of agreed deliveries by AstraZeneca to the EU.

Bulgaria has had 346,327 reported cases, including 13,313 deaths in total.