Chief State Health Inspector: Arrival of coronavirus in Bulgaria is inevitable

"The time for border protection is over. The arrival of the new COVID-19 corona virus is inevitable. This is clear for a long time to anyone working in the field. From now on, the focus should be on receiving and treating patients in order to minimize harm and loss. We know that in almost all Balkan countries there are cases already, so arrival of the virus is inevitable, the Chief State Health inspector, Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev said on February 27 at a briefing of the national crisis staff against the diseases.

"In the history of medicine, there is no country that has stopped the spread of airborne infection by taking any control measures. More importantly, there is a place where people can be received and adequately treated so that even this low mortality rate (mortality) of 2% can be reduced as much as possible," the added.

The number of flights arriving weekly from Italy to Bulgaria is 34. Most of them are currently landing at Terminal 1, and this sometimes makes it difficult to process as passengers have to fill in questionnaires and undergo thermal control. For this reason, a new organization has been set up to facilitate processing. Arrivals from Italy and landing at Terminal 1 at Sofia Airport will go through a separate corridor to avoid mixing of passengers flows and to shorten stay at the airport.

"To make things even easier, survey cards will also be given out by flight attendants during the flights themselves. Today, we will be testing an online fill-in form so that people can fill in the information even before they leave for the airport. The passengers will receive a QR code, which they will show at the airport and that will be enough,"explained Prof. Kunchev. He commented that the state will also have a database - the information will be passed to the regional health inspections at the place of residence accordingly for the passenger to be subsequently provided to GPs for the purpose of subsequent control.

So far, there is no confirmed case of coronavirus in Bulgaria.