site.btaCompulsory Vaccinations See Growing Coverage, Institute for Market Economics Says

Coverage rates for compulsory vaccinations in Bulgaria have risen over the last few years, which is very good news amid reports from across the Atlantic about people’s trust in vaccines eroding and preventable diseases (some of them lethal) breaking out. Immunization remains one of the most effective methods for prophylaxis and prevention of serious health disorders, for prolonging life and improving its quality, Institute for Market Economics (IME) senior economist Petya Georgieva says in an analysis published on the IME website on April 17.

The main compulsory vaccines in Bulgaria are those against tuberculosis, DPT (diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus), polio, Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b), hepatitis B, MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), and pneumococcal infections. Georgieva cites data from the National Centre for Public Health and Analyses showing that vaccination rates for these diseases are close to 95% of the country’s population, which means they have risen back to the coverage levels before the COVID pandemic. This can be attributed to the active work of personal physicians, and disproves the popular assumption that anti-vaccine sentiment predominates in the country.

With recommended optional vaccinations, however, coverage is very low. Although people vaccinated against influenza increased 15-fold between 2020 and 2024, by the end of the period their number was still a modest 310,000. Similar rates are reported for other optional vaccines as well. The low interest in recommended but non-compulsory vaccinations may be due to various reasons such as poor or no information, poor organization or resistance by participants in the process. When a disease occurs for which a recommended optional vaccine exists, patients may have great trouble obtaining it, which may be a matter of availability or money, or both. For example, patients’ reports over the past few weeks indicated problems with finding and taking meningococcal vaccine after several cases of meningitis were diagnosed.

The economic implications of low vaccination coverage are rarely discussed in Bulgaria, although some studies have been conducted, the analyst says. One such study, published by IME in November 2023, concludes that low levels of vaccination or refusals to be vaccinated lead to increased healthcare costs, but they are negligible for the economy compared to the effects of long-term working disability and death resulting from such decisions.

Despite the positive data concerning the growing coverage of compulsory vaccinations in recent years, it is advisable to make the following efforts:

• Making sure that recommended optional vaccines are available on the market, particularly in the event of growing demand as the incidence of a given disease rises;
• Expanding the scope of national programmes to cover larger numbers of people as in the case of HPV vaccine, which can now be given to boys as well as girls free of charge;
• Providing financial and other incentives for medical specialists to give their patients recommended optional vaccines upon the patients’ consent;
• Entitling more groups of professionals, including pharmacists, to administer vaccines, which is common practice in many parts of the world;
• Taking effective actions against medical specialists who are proven to have harmed patients by discouraging them from being vaccinated;
• And last but not least, providing incentives to patients to be vaccinated against various diseases, carrying out awareness campaigns among patients and physicians, and disseminating scientific data on the benefits of vaccination. The website plusmen.bg, run by the Health Ministry, is a wonderful instrument which should be used to the maximum extent possible, the analyst says.