{"id":8124,"date":"2026-09-09T00:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T00:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/?p=8124"},"modified":"2026-09-10T13:07:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T13:07:33","slug":"syringe-residues-analysis-in-sofia-and-plovdiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/syringe-residues-analysis-in-sofia-and-plovdiv\/","title":{"rendered":"Syringe residues analysis in Sofia and Plovdiv"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the period July-August 2026, the first syringe residues analysis was conducted in Bulgaria under the ESCAPE project (European Syringe Collection and Analysis Project Enterprise)<\/a>, which is coordinated by the EU Drugs Agency (EUDA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project aims to identify the substances used by people who inject drugs in a network of control groups from cities in the EU and neighbouring countries, and to monitor changes in patterns of use over time. The project provides city-level data that can complement other information and indicators on drug use and potentially emerging health threats in the region. The first city to join the project was Paris in 2015, and to date other cities have joined, including Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, \u200b\u200bBudapest, Cologne, Dublin, Helsinki, Madrid, Oslo, Prague, Reykjavik, Riga, Split, Tallinn, Vilnius, Thessaloniki, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2026, the cities of Sofia and Plovdiv joined the project. The initiator of the study is the National Focal Point on Drugs and Drug Addictions (NFP) at the National Center of Public Health and Analyses (NCPHA), and the implementers are the Center for Humane Policy (in providing used syringes) and the Forensic Toxicology Laboratory of the Military Medical Academy Sofia (in examining the content of used syringes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: EUDA, NFP, NCPHA<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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For the city of Sofia, 3 syringe collection sites were covered (Centre, Stochna Gara and Lyulin), and 150 syringes with any psychoactive substances were analyzed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 15 substances were identified, with methadone detected in nearly 3\/4 of the syringes tested, and methamphetamine in over 1\/4. Fentanyl was detected in over 17% of the samples.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Source: EUDA, NFP, NCPHA<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The samples in which fentanyl was detected were mostly mixed with caffeine and paracetamol. In most of the samples with detected methadone, no other adulterant was found, and among those detected, caffeine and paracetamol again predominated. These adulterants are also characteristic of the samples with cocaine, methamphetamine and other opioids. The remaining adulterants identified from the samples in Sofia are lidocaine and phenacetin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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For the city of Plovdiv, 2 syringe collection sites were covered (Stolipinovo and Smirnenski), and 152 syringes with any psychoactive substances were analyzed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 12 substances were identified, with fentanyl detected in over 94% of the syringes tested, and methamphetamine in over a quarter. Morphine was identified in only one sample.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Source: EUDA, NFP, NCPHA<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Adulterants found in the samples of the tested used syringes from the Plovdiv collection sites are caffeine and paracetamol, and they are present in almost equal proportions in the samples with identified fentanyl and methamphetamines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Source: EUDA, NFP, NCPHA<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The results of the study outline several disturbing facts that specialists in the field of drugs and drug addiction should pay attention to. The extremely high percentage of samples of used syringes in Plovdiv containing fentanyl suggests that users have switched to injecting this very dangerous substance instead of the more commonly injected heroin, which is largely in limited availability on the Bulgarian drug market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high percentage of methadone in the samples of used syringes in Sofia raises the question of how this substance is obtained and whether it is not the amount intended for opioid substitution treatment with methadone. It can be assumed that the rate of injection use of fentanyl in Sofia is higher than established in the study, since it coincided with the increased activity of law enforcement agencies to limit the spread of fentanyl in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results obtained suggest the need for continued monitoring of processes related to injecting drug use and subsequent studies to determine the content of used syringes from drug users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the period July-August 2026, the first syringe residues analysis was conducted in Bulgaria under the ESCAPE project (European Syringe Collection and Analysis Project Enterprise), which is coordinated by the EU Drugs Agency (EUDA). The project aims to identify the substances used by people who inject drugs in a network of control groups from cities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8124"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8136,"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124\/revisions\/8136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nfp-drugs.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}