Mass testing for COVID-19 will begin in April or May

Bulgaria’s government has decided to purchase over 3 million tests for the coronavirus and begin mass screening in late April or early May. The plan will cost taxpayers 21 million leva monthly.

Bulgaria will still prioritize the test it uses now: the PCR tests. They are most reliable but slow. In addition, the government will buy fast tests, which will be distributed among workers on the first line of defense, mostly medical professionals and other hospital staff.

Those tests will also be used to screen other workers, whose work involves a lot of social contact with potential virus carriers: pharmacy personnel, cashiers at grocery stores, drivers in public transport, delivery services and the like, and also contact people of confirmed cases.

The third type of test the government plans to buy is one that tests for antibodies: that is to confirm if someone had the virus and recovered.

Mass screening has been a point of some debate in Bulgaria over the past several weeks. The position of the coronavirus crisis response team was generally against it, while other epidemiologists and virologists have gone on record insisting mass testing is crucial in containing the virus. Another team of medical professionals, which was established to consult the crisis response team and the Council of Ministers openly criticized the lack of mass testing on the press conference to announce the establishment of the new body and inform about its functions.

Meanwhile the coronavirus crisis response team announced 17 new cases of COVID-19 in the country, bringing the total cases to 293, including 3 deaths and 9 recovered. 99 people are currently hospitalized, 9 are intubated and critical.

The head of the coronavirus response team Ventsislav Mutafchiyski also informed that the total number of hospital beds to date reserved for coronavirus patients are 7000, 1347 of those are equipped with ventilators. The capacities may be increased if necessary, Mutafchiyski added.