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| - Bulgaria will temporarily stop Covid jabs for non-priority groups due to shortages caused by AstraZeneca's failure to stick to supplies and deadlines, Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said Thursday. "AstraZeneca won't fulfil its engagement to deliver 142,437 doses by the end of February," a furious Angelov told reporters. "Yesterday we were surprised to find out that on March 1, Bulgaria might get 52,800 doses and not the expected 142,437 vaccines," he said, adding: "We will temporarily suspend the (vaccinations for all) until the next arrival of vaccines... expected on Saturday." Bulgaria started vaccinating medics and others on the frontline in the battle against Covid-19 at the end of December but interest was sluggish. Its vaccination rate was the lowest in the European Union with only about 30 percent of those listed showing up for their shots, forcing health workers to scramble for people to avoid wasting vaccines. The health ministry was about to launch vaccinations for the elderly and chronically ill last week, when Prime Minister Boyko Borisov ordered centres to vaccinate people of all ages. This led to long queues of predominantly younger people at vaccination centres in Sofia and other big cities over the weekend and smaller lines continued to form until Thursday, leading to shortages. So far, a total of over 168,000 Bulgarians, or about 2.0 percent of the population, have received at least one dose, compared to an average of 4.3 percent for Europe as a whole, AFP data showed. ds/ach
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