STA, 16 December 2019 - Prime Minister Marjan Šarec has announced legislative changes to prevent an increasing number of parents citing health reasons to avoid their children getting the compulsory vaccinations.
Amendments to the contagious diseases act will be ready by April that will bring changes to long-term administrative procedures related to refuse inoculation out of medical reasons, Šarec told MPs in Monday's question time.
He said that the law was often abused: in more than 95% of applications to avoid vaccination, there is no medical reason for objection to inoculation, but rather personal reasons of those who oppose vaccination.
The prime minister said that vaccination had saved many more lives than any other healthcare measure. He cited WHO data showing it prevented al least two million deaths a year, and if the inoculation rate was higher an additional million and a half.
Šarec noted the growing number of measles cases in Slovenia, noting that Slovenia's vaccination rate was falling, so that at 93% it had already fallen below the recommendable level of 95%.
Meanwhile, the number of measles cases in the country rose from zero between 1999 and 2009 to a couple of cases later on, with the exception of 52 registered in 2014, while 30 have been recorded so far this year.
The latest global study on attitudes towards immunisation showed that 13% of Slovenians believe that vaccines are not safe, almost double the world average.
