Addressing a conference on MMR vaccination coverage organised in Zagreb on Wednesday, Kaic said that the highest drop in the vaccination of pre-school children against measles, mumps and rubella was registered in the southern counties of Split and Dubrovnik.
"All this increases the number of children at risk of contracting such communicable diseases, thus heightening the risk of outbreaks. However, what is good is the high vaccination rate among school children," he said.
Paediatrician Goran Tesovic of the "Fran Mihaljevic" university hospital for infectious diseases told the conference that he found the issue of non-vaccination of children to be overblown. This doctor, however, warns about the risk of measles outbreaks. For instance, Romania and Italy are still struggling with outbreaks of this highly contagious disease.
This April, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) warned about gaps in vaccination coverage against measles having led to several outbreaks in Europe in the past year, with both children and young adults affected.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads through direct contact and through the air. It can be prevented with a safe and effective vaccine, but due to immunisation gaps, it remains one of the biggest killers of children worldwide. The World Health Organization says measles killed 134,000 in 2015.
Paediatrician Milivoj Jovancevic said that all relevant information should be provided to parents in order to enable them to make decisions based on arguments.
He said that fears about side effects of vaccinations were being spread by various media, and parents cannot establish which information source is reliable.
Const. Court rejects NGO proposal to abolish compulsory vaccination
A few years ago the Croatian Constitutional Court rejected the proposal of a civil society association to assess whether compulsory vaccination is in line with the constitution and ruled that parents cannot decide on their own whether they will allow the vaccination of their newborns, explaining that "the child's right to health is above the parents' right to choose".
The Constitutional Court upheld the position of the Health Ministry that immunisation is the best protection against outbreaks of potentially pernicious diseases.
In an attempt to eliminate the risk of outbreaks of some diseases, Croatia has laws requiring children to be vaccinated against those diseases, with fines up to HRK 2,000 levied on parents who do not comply. Nevertheless, a rising number of parents opposed the vaccination of their newborns in the last few years. Thus, in 2012, the parents of 28 kids rejected vaccination and in 2013 those figures rose to 143. Some of those opponents say they fear that vaccinations could cause other diseases such as autism, while some insist that they should be free to decide.
Paediatrician Jovancevic said today that autism was erroneously linked to vaccination.