site.btaHealth Ministry Launches Vaccine Awareness Campaign

Bulgaria's Health Ministry is launching an awareness campaign on the benefits of vaccines with the support of UNICEF Bulgaria, the Ministry said in a press release on Monday.

The event is timed in with the  European Immunization Week (EIW), which this year takes place between April 21 and 27.

In 2023 Bulgaria registered a 93% coverage rate of mandatory childhood immunizations. Such high coverage is reported for the first time since 2019. Traditionally, the largest number of children were immunized for type B hepatitis and for tuberculosis in the first days of their life: 47,125 newborns (97.2%) and 46,727 newborns (96.5%), respectively.

A representative survey of parents' attitudes to the National Immunization Calendar, conducted by the Health Ministry and UNICEF Bulgaria, found that 93.7% of parents agreed that all vaccines are important, 91.1% are convinced that vaccines prevent serious diseases in children, and 88% believe that vaccines are safe.  

Despite the positive trend, basic immunizations of the following children were not carried out in Bulgaria in 2023 even though they were subject to this procedure: 4,030 children for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, poliomyelitis, Haemophilus influenzae and type B viral hepatitis; 4,406 children for pneumococcus, and 4,712 for measles, epidemic parotitis and rubella, the press release said.