site.btaHealth Minister Serbezova Meets with Romanian Counterpart Rafila

The Romanian Ministry of Health will share its experience and concept for the development of children's health with Bulgarian health authorities, it transpired during a meeting between Minister of Health Prof. Asena Serbezova with her Romanian counterpart Prof. Dr. Alexandru Rafila in Bucharest, the Ministry of Health announced on Thursday.

The two officials visited the largest children's hospital in the Romanian capital, “Maria Sklodowska Curie”. It employs specialists in all areas of paediatrics and provides all-round care except for organ transplantations.

Minister Serbezova pointed out that the establishment of a National Children's Hospital in Bulgaria is at the stage of selecting a site for construction.

During the meeting, the two health ministers agreed, within the framework of next week’s Council of European Ministers of Health, that Bulgaria and Romania will come up with a common position on future supplies of vaccines from the manufacturer Pfizer/BioNTech. Bulgaria and Romania, along with eight other EU Member States, have sent an open letter to the European Commission urging supplies to be tailored to the real needs of the population, as the current projected quantities are many times higher than vaccine consumption and burdening Member States' budgets.

The reason for the common position is the fact that vaccine supply agreements oblige the participating countries to purchase the vaccine doses assigned to them in accordance with the distribution made under each agreement. At the same time, the agreements do not contain a mechanism by which states can give up their assigned vaccine doses, the statement said.