Croatia's chief epidemiologist Krunoslav Capak on Friday announced a new COVID vaccination strategy via more mobile teams, notably in rural areas, more drive-in vaccination points and the possibility to vaccinate chronic patients in hospitals.

The number of mobile teams will be increased so that those who can’t come to a vaccination point can be vaccinated at home, the director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health told the press after a meeting on the new vaccination strategy at the Health Ministry.

In rural areas the vaccination rate is less than 40%, so we will talk with our colleagues on the ground about ensuring a bus or a van so that mobile teams can come to a post office or a school and all those who can’t come to the county seats can be vaccinated in their hometown, Capak said, adding that most of those vaccinated in such areas are aged 60-80, whereas the vaccination rate among children and youth is poor.

“We have reached a vaccination rate which we now have a very hard time to increase. In November we had a vaccination wave, with people increasingly coming for their first dose, but now we have very low first and booster dose numbers, so we are discussing what we could do to increase the vaccination rate,” Capak said.

The main reason why people don’t want to get vaccinated is that they think the vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and for fear of side effects, he said. That’s why we have opened counselling centres where people can talk to doctors about their fears, he added.

Capak believes the Health Ministry and the national COVID crisis management team have not made mistakes in the vaccination campaign, saying that the key is in the population’s health literacy.