There is no clinical pathway for Long Covid in Bulgaria, nor is there officially existing such a diagnosis, as well as official statistics on how many Bulgarians suffer long-term from the consequences of the coronavirus. “Since the beginning of the current year, I have examined 6,000 patients. According to my estimation, there are nearly 150,000 Bulgarians in our country who suffer from “long covid““ said Prof. Kosta Kostov – a long-time specialist in lung diseases. Official statistics show that their number is 80 million people worldwide. “The problem in our country is that patients are confused and do not know which specialist to turn to,” added Prof. Kostov. He made the statement during a round table on the topic "Plan for the development of health tourism with a focus on medical tourism", which was held today in Sofia.
According to him, one of the main problems in health care today, along with the lack of nurses, midwives and rehabilitators, is the broken relationship between doctors from hospital and outpatient care and rehabilitative doctors. “There used to be this connection. At the moment, I am doing everything possible with the specialists I have, to do everything possible to revive the interest of the Bulgarian doctor in primary and secondary prevention. Bulgaria's possibilities for rehabilitation are enormous, but they have not been used. We have a huge resource for this. Holistic medicine is the treatment of body, soul and mind. In hospitals, we do not treat the body well. There is no one to heal the souls of the patients. This is the job of the rehab centers and it is something that can be worked on with the expert advice” is Prof. Kostov's opinion. He recalled that the TOP 3 diseases that are the cause of death are malignant diseases, followed by cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases.
Bulgaria has 47 medical spa establishments, 106 spa complexes and 35 wellness complexes. Combined with the presence of the unique natural resources available to our country, they can be of incredible help to Bulgarians. The participants in the round table were united around this opinion.