Bulgaria's health insurance fund (NZOK) says 21 pharmacies in 12 regions wrongly received more than €1m. The fund found the money during checks run jointly with the State Agency for National Security (DANS), the Interior Ministry's economic police and the Health Ministry.

The problem is with the medicines the pharmacies dispensed. For these drugs, the national number of the medicinal product does not match the product code (GTIN). In effect, the pharmacies got money from the fund with no legal basis.

The fund has asked the state IT firm Informatsionno Obsluzhvane for more technical data, including for 2025.

NZOK, Informatsionno Obsluzhvane, the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union and the companies that hold marketing authorisations for the drugs are now agreeing specific steps for real-time checks. The fund says these checks should stop such cases.

NZOK said it will keep improving its checks so that public money is spent properly and by law.