Underlining the importance of disease prevention, the minister said that the number of preventive health examinations had dropped by more than 60 percent between 1999 and the end of 2003.
Ljubicic said a number of national programmes would be adopted to fight heart diseases, diabetes, breast cancer and colon cancer.
He also stressed the importance of improving the primary health care system and of more rational consumption of medicines. He added that the introduction of a computerised disease register in the primary health care system and hospitals would start in about a dozen days.