In Bulgaria, vaccination coverage with mandatory vaccines is below the recommended 95%, said Jennifer Melgaard from the WHO

In Bulgaria, the vaccination coverage with the mandatory vaccines is over 85%, but it is below the recommended 95%, which is necessary to protect the entire society. This is what Jennifer Melgaard, public health expert and consultant of the office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Bulgaria told journalists. Melgaard took part in a seminar on vaccines as part of the celebration of the European Immunization Week. According to her, less than 10% of those protected by the influenza vaccine or the human papilloma virus vaccine in Bulgaria, she also pointed out.

Measles cases in the region are on the rise, which may be due to missed vaccinations during the covid pandemic, she added, pointing out that WHO-Bulgaria is supporting the Ministry of Health and working together to define vaccination programmes, including preparedness and responses in the spread of measles.

In the framework of the World and European Immunization Weeks, we call on countries to include vaccines in their budgets, as well as to speak with one voice about the impact of vaccines, with GPs and the media being an important aspect of this, Melgaard added. According to her, when myths are spread in the media, it can put people’s lives at risk. Vaccines are safe, he said, adding that like any medicine, they can have mild side effects. Severe side reactions are very rare, she added and recalled that thanks to vaccines, some diseases have been eradicated or almost completely eradicated.

Analyses, based on reported cases of side effects, are conducted annually to analyze whether the occurrence of a disease is vaccine-related, said Dr. Kremena Parmakova, head of the Department of Infectious Disease Surveillance at the Ministry of Health. her words, if the vaccine is harmful, it will not be administered.

The Ministry of Health has different ideas for disseminating information about vaccines, for which data is published on the department’s website, on social networks, and an information site has been created, she added. Vaccines save lives, but their main purpose is to guarantee people more years of quality life, she added.

Undoubtedly, in the field of medicine in general, there are four epoch-making events that fundamentally changed the possibilities of treatment and saved millions of human lives – clean drinking water, disinfectants, antibiotics and vaccines, said the chief state health inspector Assoc. Angel Kunchev. When the tool of vaccines is available, one can think not just to help everyone, but to completely eliminate a disease, which is a very ambitious task. According to him, only smallpox has been completely eradicated so far.

The alarming facts in a WHO and UNICEF report prepared a few months ago show that confidence in the immunization process has collapsed due to the covid pandemic, said Ivaylo Spasov, UNICEF-Bulgaria representative. The routine immunization of children is at its lowest level in 30 years, but in Bulgaria the levels of mandatory childhood vaccines are kept traditionally high, he added. It is worrying that there are also attitudes among general practitioners that are more hesitant or there are even cases where parents obtain a false document about their child’s immunizations, added Spasov.