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The ruling SPD is requesting a fundamental revision of the national vaccination strategy. According to the movement, the Czech Republic should evaluate vaccines independently of international bodies and not increase economic and institutional pressure on vaccination. He does not consider it appropriate to pay for flu vaccines by health insurance companies.
SPD deputy Jan Síla told ČTK on Wednesday at the meeting at the Ministry of Health (MZd). Health Minister Adam Vojtěch (for ANO) said on Monday that he considers higher vaccination rates to be the right goal. The office stated after the meeting that it is not planning any major changes yet.
“If the goal is to truly restore confidence in vaccination, it is essential to carry out an open and independent analysis of the benefits and risks of vaccines against covid-19, to transparently evaluate the approval and supervision processes independently of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO), to clearly separate voluntariness from economic or institutional pressure, and to respect the protection of personal data and professional autonomy,” said Síla.
For example, he has doubts about the benefit or effectiveness of flu vaccines. According to him, the virus is highly mutagenic, so it is not clear which strain will occur during the season. “The strategy presents the benefits as self-evident, without an open professional discussion about the limits of effectiveness, the variability of virus strains or the real impact on mortality and hospitalizations,” he added. According to him, the strategy counts on vaccination with two to three billion crowns, which he called wasted money.
The document quantifies the socio-economic impacts of the low proportion of vaccinated people at tens of billions of crowns per year. According to the strategy, the flu alone puts more than 100,000 people out of work every year, for an average of 13 days, which means a loss of almost two billion crowns. About seven percent of Czechs get vaccinated against the flu every year.
“We want to have a higher vaccination rate here, because it is a basic prevention against infectious diseases,” said the Minister of Health on Monday. According to an earlier statement by chairman Tomio Okamura, the SPD does not reject the vaccination of children or previously introduced vaccines, but modern agents for the flu or covid bother it.
According to the Ministry of Health, the strategy does not contain any new mandatory vaccinations and fully respects the principle of voluntariness enshrined in the government’s program statement. “At the moment, we do not plan to fundamentally change it or resubmit it to the government,” said Renata Povolná from the press department of the Ministry of Health on Tuesday.
In the Czech Republic, people are required to be vaccinated against nine diseases, such as measles, whooping cough or diphtheria. People undergo other vaccinations voluntarily, they either pay for them themselves or are covered by health insurance companies. For example, children are protected against rotavirus, human papillomavirus (HPV) or meningococcus, all adults are vaccinated against covid-19, people over the age of 50 are vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis and people over 65 against the flu.