Health in Bulgaria

Bulgaria had the third highest mortality in Europe, at 708 per 100,000 population in 2015. The four European regions with the highest death rates from diseases of the circulatory system were all in Bulgaria.^[1] In the early 2000s, the major natural causes of death were cardiovascular disease (most commonly manifested in strokes), cancer, and respiratory illness. Bulgaria has had a very low incidence rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although in 2003 the estimated rate of incidence was less than 0.1 percent of the population, in the early 2000s the number of new case reports increased annually. In 2005 some 86 new cases were reported, bringing the official total to about 600, and 58 new cases were reported in the first half of 2006.^[2] In 2010, there were 1,160 HIV-positive persons.^[3]