Turkey’s Health Ministry has begun asking doctors to keep a register of information on anti-vaccine activists, using wet signatures of patients refusing vaccinations rather than electronic methods as previously, in order to tighten control in the face of a worrying spreading of certain diseases.
Ministerial sources quoted by the English version of the daily Hürriyet say the new criteria, which requires wet signatures from patients refusing vaccines, is aimed at gathering more accurate data on anti-vaccination people and their numbers, precisely in the face of the rise in the number of people refusing to vaccinate their children, which in a decade has grown from just a hundred at the beginning of the last decade to more than 40,000 across Turkey by 2024.
Some doctors in fact claim that the actual number of anti-vaccine supporters exceeds 100,000 in Turkey alone, their numbers having risen mainly as a result of the controversies that arose during the coronavirus vaccination process. Even so, a number of Turkish health professionals have expressed concern about the ministerial decision, which they believe could actually complicate the follow-up of vaccine refusers.
Experts alert that one of the most worrying consequences of the rise of the anti-vaccine movement is the increase in cases of measles among children, which can be fatal. According to data from the WHO‘s regional office for Europe, between January and October last year more than 30,000 cases of measles were reported in 40 of the 53 member countries, a 30-fold increase in the number of cases in just one year compared to just 941 cases registered in the whole 2022.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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