Following a debate about how to distribute the budget of the state fund allotted for planned parenthood, Varna and Rousse municipalities announced that they were ready to additionally finance in-vitro procedures, Bulgarian-language Sega daily reported on January 26 2009.

At the end of December 2008, when a draft bill introducing the Assisted Reproduction fund was proposed in Parliament, MPs from the health committee expressed fears it could provoke a conflict of interest.

The fund will operate with 10 million leva allocated from the state budget's surplus. Amendments to the existing law would allow up to three in-vitro attempts as the fund covers 5000 leva, including medicines and the procedure itself. If the treatment exceeds this amount, it remains the responsibility of the patient.

Heading the fund will be administrative, medical and public councils as well as a general manager. Participating in the three councils will be representatives of the state administration, in-vitro specialists and public organisations. The fund's managerial body will define which clinics are eligible to be financed and which medicines are to be used. The Health Ministry would then issue a final word of approval and offer a contract.

Atanas Shterev, founder of a clinic for assisted reproduction called Shterev (Щерев), said, as quoted by Sega daily, that he did not agree with the stipulation that the fund should select the clinics with which to work. He suspected that since public/patients organisations were allowed to take part in the fund's management, it would be no problem for a clinic to register a foundation, masked under a "patient" body, so as to try to meddle with the fund's decisions.

Antoniya Purvanova, (no relation to Georgi Purvanov), an MP from the National Movement for Stability and Progress (NDSV) who moved the bill, said that she did not foresee a conflict of interests because the medical council would not have to decide which clinics would be financed. She gave an example of how no control was exercised over already licensed clinics, where in some cases up to seven in-vitro attempts yielded no results.

The draft passed the first vote, but it would probably sustain significant changes during the second, Sega daily quoted Borislav Kitov, chairperson of the health committee as saying.

Varna municipality has allocated 250 000 leva from the municipal budget to an in-vitro programme. The first 50 couples selected have undergone the initial tests because the municipality is ready to cover all expenses. Varna residents and first-try patients will be deemed a higher priority.

In Rousse, the municipality allocated 35 000 leva in 2008 and paid for half of the expenses. City councils in Blagoevgrad and Bourgas were also considering a municipal fund to help couples battling sterility.