work at the Croatian Institute of Public Health, in Epidemiology Service for Communicable Diseases at the immunization Department. We are probably all aware that there is no universal recipe or no universal method, which would be applicable and effective in increasing vaccination coverage in all countries.

All policy and decision makers have to design and adapt a strategy depending on their local settings, financial resources, political support, education of healthcare workers, public trust and etc. It is important to make evidence based information visible and accessible to everyone. We need to empower healthcare workers to aquire and sharing knowledge. It is important to conduct transparently all tasks related to the procurement of the vaccines distribution as well as introduction of the new vaccines in the national programme. In addition to professional support, it is essential to get political support as the provision of sufficient financial resources to ensure smooth implementation of immunisation programme in Croatia.

dr. Vesna Višekruna Vučina (Head of Department for Vaccination, Epidemiology Department, Croatian Institute for Public Health)

As we know, immunisation programme was a very successful, successful for decades and with high vaccination coverage and high impact on vaccine preventable diseases. For that, we have to thank to all the physicians and other healthcare workers and everyone involved in all aspects of the programme, from realization of the program, drafting, adoption, vaccine procurement, supply, monitoring of side effects, monitoring of immunization coverage and vaccine preventable diseases, morbidity rates, and above all, administration of vaccines to children and elderly and adults.

In Croatia we have very well established network that needs to be continuously supported and improved. It is very important to use and strengthen existing national capacities, not to create parallel systems. For example, to start over with something that is already existing and it’s regulated by the laws. Thereby we will be wasting resources and the possibility of effective joint joint action on vaccine coverages.

When we speak about collaboration with other colleagues from the region, from the national public health institutes, and when comparing our results and vaccine coverage rate for respiratory infections such as RSV, pertussis, influenza, pneumococcal disease, we have a national surveillance system and we are part of ECDC network of all the countries in Europe. We circulate information between countries. We seek for some experiences from other countries, maybe in implementing something or we can give advice on our experiences.

“We have discussed with our colleagues from from Slovenia, Bosnia; they are really looking also at what Croatia is actually doing.

We need to exchange practices and share our best practices…”

In our national settings every winter season we distribute vaccines; national Public Health Institute distributes them to doctors all over the country and we have information on the vaccine uptake and the numbers of vaccine needed. In some seasons, we had to order more vaccines because we had bigger request for physicians. That is something that we do every day with all the vaccines especially from our obligatory program. We have discussed with our colleagues from from Slovenia, Bosnia. They are really looking at what Croatia is actually doing. This is a compliment also, that we need to exchange practices and share our best practices.