VACCINE PRODUCTION AND EPIDEMICS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00810A005200760010-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2007/09/05: CIA-RDP80-0081 OA005200760010-3
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION REPORT
This material contains Information affecting the Na-
tional Defense of the United States within the mean-
Ing of the 3splonage Laws, Title 18. U.S.C. Secs. 793
and 794, the transmission or revelation of which in
any manner to an unauthorised person is prohibited
bylaw. I 25X1
SECRET--U. S. OFFICIALS ONLY
COUNTRY Bulgaria REPORT
SUBJECT Vaccine Production and DATE DISTR. 28 October 1954
Epidemics
NO. OF PAGES 2 25X1
DATE OF INFO.
REQUIREMENT NO. RD
PLACE ACQUIRED
REFERENCES
THE SOURCE EVALUATIONS IN THIS REPORT ARE DEFINITIVE.
THE APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.
(FOR KEY SEE REVERSE)
1. The Institute za Narodno Zdrave, located at Ulitsa'Zaimov 26 in Sofia, is the
only establishmt:at in Bulgaria engaged in the production of immunizing sub-
stances (sera). The director is Andrey Popov,. There are no-Soviet advisers,
experts, or other officials at the Institute; research and production are con-
trolled exclusively by Bulgarian officials. Four Soviet physicians worked in
the Institute for a short time in 1949, but they have returned to the USSR.
The production of immunizing substances and the quality of the products is con-
trolled by a special department in the Ministry ofHealth headed by Doctor
Khadzidimova.
2. There have been no cases of unsuitable sera produced in the Institute during
recent years. The last such case was in 1949 when Dome diphtheria and cholera
sera, faultily produced, were distributed and used with disastrous consequences.)
A number of employees, of the Institute were arresteid'at that time, among them a
Doctor Todorov. He was later released and is now director of a laboratory in
Ruse.
.2. A system for the exchange of immunizing substances,'for the purpose of additional
control of their composition and efficacy,, has been worked out. Sera produced in
Bulgaria are sent for examination to laboratories in the USSR, Poland, and Hungary.
Rumanian, Hungarian, and Albanian products-',are examined at the Institute in Sofia.
Sera against spotted typhus (Typhus Exendimaticus) are not produced in Bulgaria;
recent consignments of this substance arrived from Hungary. Sera against diph-
theria were imported In 1953 from Polandh,and Hungary..
14. There was a diphtheria'.epidemic in Sofia.-and Plovdiv between September and. November
1953. About.600 persons, mostly children; contracted the disease in Sofia and
approximately the same number in Plovdiv.. `The death rate was 4 per cent in Sofia
and 2.5-3 per cent in:Plovdiv, mostly children, between one and a half and seven
years of age. About 15,000 children under the age of seven were immunized. Two
emergency hospitals with 250 beds each were opened, one in the Todor Minkov School
and one in another school in the Lozenets district in Sofia.
SECRET--U. S. OFFICIALS ONLY
I X r ARMY X NAVY X AIR X FRI AEC .OS I E X
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Approved For Release 2007/09/05: CIA-RDP80-0081 OA005200760010-3
 Approved For Release 2007/09/05: CIA-RDP80-00810A005200760010-3
5.
Approximately 2,000 children were affected by a scarlet fever epidemic in
Plovdiv in September-October 1953. The death rate was less than 0.5 per cent.
Scarlet fever epidemics recur in Sofia and other urban areas every summer,
though the number of cases in recent years has been on the decrease. The
following figures on the scarlet fever epidemics in Sofia are known:
1947
- 6,000 children
19118
- 3,000 "
1949
- 2,500 "
1950
- 3,000 "
1951
- 3,500 r
1952
- 4,000 "
1953
- 2,500 r
6. Epidemic hepatitis was contracted by at least 30 to 40 per cent of the children
and by a small number of adults who are infected by the children. It is alleged..
ly caused?by the serum with which children are vaccinated against measles. Some
changes were effected in the production of this serum, and the number of children
affected decreased in 1953-54 as a consequence.
8. Doctor Michev (fnu), the head of the new Bulgarian medical mission of 40 physicians
which left for Korea in February 1954, was formerly head of the department con-
trolling the pharmaceutical industry in the Ministry of Health. He served as a
Brigadier in Spain and was in the USSR during World War II. 25X1
Comments ~ reports distribution of below-standard vaccine
ch cause a number of fatal accidents as recently as early 1954.
SECRET--U. S. OFFICIALS ONLY
Approved For Release 2007/09/05: CIA-RDP80-00810A005200760010-3