Vaccine

Five confirmed cases of measles in Bulgaria, there are serious doubts about another 12 infected children. Four of the children diagnosed with measles have been from the Blagoevgrad region and have not been vaccinated for smallpox.
 

Bulgaria has confirmed a new case of African swine fever in a wild boar near in the northeastern town of Devnya, the national food safety authority said on Wednesday.

African swine fever is a highly contagious disease that affects pigs and wild boar. It does not affect humans.

Following the wave of measles in Europe, two cases have already been confirmed in Bulgaria. One is for a 3-year-old child and the other is a 37-year-old woman. The disease has reached epidemic values ​​in neighboring countries, and there are casualties.

The Bulgarian government on Wednesday adopted a national program for the improvement of seasonal influenza vaccination coverage for the period 2019-2022, the cabinet said here in a statement, reports Xinhua. 

The peak of the flu in Bulgaria is expected to be in January, Todor Kantardjiev, director of the Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, told Nova TV. According to him, the percentage of vaccinated people is ridiculously low.

Greece comes second behind Slovenia on the list of European Union countries where citizens have a growing amount of confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccinations, a recent report by the European Commission has shown.

Bulgaria, Latvia and France are the most vaccine-sceptic countries in the European Union, a survey suggests, reports EuroNews. 

Fewer than 70% of respondents in all three countries consider innoculations safe, according to the Brussels-commissioned poll.

Greece has one of Europe's lowest vaccination rates, according to a new study published by the European Commission which also found that immunity to measles has been dropping since 2010.

Only two out of three Bulgarians agree that vaccines are safe and 72.7 per cent believe they are effective - among the lowest level of trust among European Union nationals, according to a report published by the European Commission on Wednesday to mark World Polio Day.

A measles outbreak that has infected more than 3,200 people in Greece since May last year seems to be on the wane, as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reported no new cases over the past week.