Health Minister Vili Beros announced on Sunday that a national screening programme for early detection of melanoma would be put in place by the end of this year because the mortality rate among persons with newly-detected melanoma in Croatia is 30 per cent.

“We will be among the first in the world to introduce a new national programme for early detection of melanoma,” Beros told a press conference in Knin where 250 patients had signed up for an examination today as part of a screening campaign.

By the time of the press conference, 106 patients had been examined and melanoma was found in seven per cent of them. “These seven per cent of early detected melanoma means seven per cent of lives saved,” the health minister said.

Beros pointed out that as many as 50 per cent of people in Croatia do not use protection against the sun, one of the main causes of skin melanoma.

Citing data for 2020, Mirna Situm, head of the Health Ministry’s Melanoma Reference Centre, said that the number of new melanoma patients in Croatia increases by 150 a year, which is “a worrying figure”.  She said that Croatia ranks second in the European Union in terms of mortality from melanoma.