Over 17,000 Kyrgyzstanis refused scheduled vaccination of children in the first nine months of 2023. Director of the Republican Center for Immunoprophylaxis Gulbara Ishenapysova told 24.kg news agency.
According to her, people refuse preventive vaccinations because of religious beliefs, as well as because of doubts about the safety and quality of vaccines.
«Therefore, the Ministry of Health is conducting a lot of explanatory work among the population, including through social media and with the assistance of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of the Kyrgyz Republic, together with which we adopted a resolution back in 2019,» Gulbara Ishenapysova said.
The official registration of anti-vaxxers in the country has been conducted since 2016. Previously, up to 8,000 refusals of preventive vaccinations per year were officially registered. The growth is explained by the introduction of an electronic system of registration of refusals.
Gulbara Ishenapysova stressed that the indicator of the necessary coverage of preventive vaccinations in the country should be higher than 95 percent.
At the same time, the coverage of the population with measles vaccination has decreased to 88 percent. This was influenced, among other things, by the coronavirus pandemic.
«That is why measles, which is characterized by cyclicity, returns to disadvantaged areas,» the head of the center noted.
