In the five years between 2012 and 2017 nearly 16,000 Croatian pre-school children were not vaccinated against measles, rubella and mumps, accounting for about 8 percent of their entire population, with experts warning that the growing scepticism towards vaccines and the growing share of non-vaccinated children is a serious cause for concern.

“Croatian counties with low percentages of vaccinated children have a large number of children susceptable to measles, with their share is large enough to potentially cause an epidemic,” epidemiologist Bernard Kaic of the Croatian Institute for Public Health (HZJZ) told 24sata daily.

The three counties with lowest percentages of vaccinated children in 2017 were the Dubrovnik-Neretva (55 percent), Split-Dalmatia (78 percent) and Primorje-Gorski Kotar (80 percent), according to data recently released by HZJZ.

“That type of vaccine is the best example of the continuing drop in vaccination rates that has been going on for years in Croatia,” Kaic said, and added that significant drops in vaccination rates against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough were also noticed.

“There are always some children who don’t get vaccinated, and their numbers are growing year after year. The reason is that there is general distrust towards vaccines, and many feel that vaccination is no longer necessary. People are scared of vaccines because they read all sorts of stuff on the Internet, but they forget that there is a lot of untrue things out there,” Kaic said.

According to Croatian law, the fine for parents who don’t get their child vaccinated is 2,000 kuna (€270), but for anyone to be actually fined, they would need to be reported to health authorities first, which starts investigation proceedings and may result in a lower fine or only a citation.

By comparison, the fine for not vaccinating children in Germany is almost 18,000 kuna (€2,430), 24sata reported on Wednesday.

(1€ = 7.41 kuna)