Bulgarian Health Minister Stefan Konstantinov was expected to table a Cabinet motion on February 22 for an external audit that would investigate allegations of unreasonably high prices of medicines in the public health care sector.

Konstantinov said on February 21 that the audit should be carried out by external experts to avoid any suspicion of a cover-up.

"Let this audit be done by people who are not part of the [health] ministry, so that there are no doubts. There has been plenty of talk in recent days about the price of drugs in Bulgaria," Konstantinov was quoted as saying by website dnevnik.bg.

Earlier on February 21, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov fired deputy health minister Gergana Pavlova, whose remit was to co-ordinate and control the Government policy in the area of medical equipment and drugs, as well as serve as the Cabinet's liaison with the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) on medicaments policy.

Konstantinov said it was the right decision given the circumstances and that the ministry's reputation should be beyond reproach.

Pavlova's dismissal came at a time when reports in Bulgarian-language media have claimed that Bulgaria is being investigated by the European Commission on suspicion that it allowed one pharmaceutical company to build an alleged monopoly on the domestic market.

The company in question was Sopharma, according to the reports, which said that the drug maker had about 70 per cent of the supply contracts with Bulgarian hospitals, many of which were forced to accept the company's higher prices because they were already heavily in debt to the company and did not wish to have their accounts frozen.

The same reports claimed that Sopharma was selling medicine on the domestic market at much higher prices than in neighbouring Serbia and Turkey, which are not part of the European common market.

Pavlova was the seventh deputy health minister to be fired or resign since the current Government took office in August 2009. There have also been two ministerial changes in the same period.