Assoc. Prof. Kunchev: The Fourth Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine is Not Effective

“A fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccine is not very effective”. This was stated by Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev.

He explained that the fourth dose is not encouraged in Bulgaria. It is recommended only for many risk groups, but this is a really small number of people.

Assoc. Prof. Kunchev stated that the number of vaccines administered has dropped a lot recently.

"The whole question is what the outcome of this disease will be. If the vaccine protects you from serious illness and death, then what better can we want. Unfortunately, very few immunizations are administered. A huge percentage of the non-immunized population remains in Bulgaria, we are just over 30% vaccinated, but we remain with the lowest level of immunized in Europe," he said.

"We've received just over 4 million doses of vaccines and we have immunized just over 2 million people."

According to Assoc. Prof. Kunchev, a way must be found for general practitioners to be able to do research, because people go there en masse after feeling bad. For this reason, the state must provide them with rapid tests.

In general, the intensity of the disease is much lower at the moment.

"We still have a lot of infected people (number of new cases in the last 24 hours). After the holidays, the incidence has risen a bit, but it is such that it does not scare us. Of those 300-400 people who get sick every day, we do not have an increase in the number of people hospitalized," Kunchev told BNT, adding that, unfortunately, the real number of infected remains much higher than the number officially registered.

A problem would arise with the emergence of a new strain.

"A new strain means a whole new genetic combination because immunization and immunity will not be able to affect the new strain," the doctor explained but made it clear that such a grim variant is currently very unlikely. "There are 3 million Bulgarians who are not immune to the disease. In the event of a strain, then everything can start over. But the grim scenario is very unlikely. There may be new variants that will affect many people, but not severely,” he said.

Assoc. Prof. Kunchev reiterated that a large number of newly infected people are unvaccinated people.

"The attacks against vaccines are completely groundless, they work, but not to the extent we wanted," said the doctor.

Two new suspicious samples for unspecified acute hepatitis in children are being tested at the National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases and are expected to confirm the presence of the virus. This was stated by the Chief State Health Inspector Angel Kunchev.

One of the cases is from Sofia and the other from Plovdiv. "There were four samples, very close to the definition of the virus. Two dropped out. There are two left, which we will probably confirm if everything goes in that direction." said Kunchev.

Health authorities are currently collecting information from GPs on all suspected cases. The samples are tested at the National Reference Laboratory. Angel Kunchev said that suspicious cases will be investigated back in time, in an attempt to find the cause of unspecified hepatitis.

"It's a hepatitis that we don't know what caused it. We certainly can't say how it is transmitted or who causes it." said Kunchev.

About 300 cases of acute unspecified hepatitis in children have been reported worldwide. There are 253 registered cases in the EU.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Angel Kunchev was awarded Novinite's "Special Award for Contribution in 2021" for his tireless work and solving problems in the health system during the covid pandemic in Bulgaria.

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