SOFIA, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Petar Moskov, who was Bulgaria's minister of health from November 2014 to January 2017, was on Monday charged with committing three crimes during his rule, the national Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.
The first charge was that in July 2015, Moskov received a donation from the Ministry of Health of Turkey -- 200,000 doses of vaccine, the use of which was not allowed on the territory of Bulgaria, the statement said.
Therefore, the vaccine could not meet the needs of Bulgaria's immunization calendar, and the country's Ministry of Health has suffered damages worth 325,233 BGN (some 204,000 U.S. dollars), the statement said.
The second charge against Moskov was that in November 2015, he deliberately facilitated an unfavorable deal with the state-owned company Bul Bio NCIPD for donating 5,000,000 doses of anti-tuberculosis vaccine, which has resulted in damages worth 442,107 BGN, the statement said.
According to the third charge, as a result of Moskov's inactivity, Bul Bio NCIPD in June and July 2016 produced and stored diphtheria and tetanus vaccines without proper permission from Bulgarian Drug Agency, which caused damages worth 110,003 BGN, it said.
If found guilty on the first charge, Moskov may spend three to ten years behind bars, the statement said. The same penalty applied for the third charge, while for the second charge it was one to six years imprisonment, it added. (1 U.S. dollar=1.59 Bulgarian lev)
