Europe is experiencing a decline in vaccination rates, but Bulgaria has already overcome this issue

Monday, Jan 12, 2026

Mediapool

Post-COVID, Europe shows declining childhood and elderly flu vaccination rates due to misinformation and skepticism.

🔗 Read the article on mediapool.bg

[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, Europe has seen a decline in both childhood vaccines and seasonal flu immunization among the elderly, according to data from the World Health Organization and Eurostat. A common trend across various countries is increasing misinformation, heightened skepticism towards institutions, and persistent confusion between scientifically proven risks and unfounded fears. This drop does not appear limited to a specific age group or vaccine type but reflects a broader shift in attitudes that could have long-term consequences for collective immunity and the management of preventable diseases.

🔗 Read the original article

Previous page The Spanish Catholic Church will compensate victims of sexual abuse
Next page The number of asylum seekers travelling to Hungary via the Western Balkan route has decreased significantly, but even today, a shockingly large number of children are dying on other routes

© 2026 Pulse - Europe beyond the beat


PULSE is an initiative for cross-border collaborative journalism in Europe co-funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement n. PO 4500158093.

PULSE is an initiative coordinated by OBCT that has been promoting intensive journalistic cross-border collaborations in Europe since 2024. Its main aim is to help strengthen the European public sphere by reporting on and telling stories from new and diverse perspectives.

At the heart of PULSE are 10 leading national news outlets (Delfi – Lithuania, Deník Referendum – Czechia, Der Standard – Austria, EfSyn – Greece, El Confidencial – Spain, Gazeta Wyborcza – Poland, HotNews – Romania, HVG – Hungary, Il Sole 24 Ore – Italy, Mediapool – Bulgaria) and three transnational organisations, including OBCT , n-ost and Voxeurop .

Additional outlets and journalists are involved as associate partners, including EUobserver , Føljeton (Denmark), H-Alter (Croatia), Levila (Estonia), Rubryka (Ukraine), and The Journal Investigates (Ireland).

PULSE is driven by a sort of virtual transnational newsroom made up of journalists from all the publications involved. It collaboratively produces new journalistic content on European issues on a daily basis, coming in many different languages. The editorial output amounts to over a thousand publications per year, mostly in article form.

PULSE also runs 4 thematic networks open to any European journalist interested in crucial issues such as EU enlargement, relations between the EU and other global powers, the EU’s green transition, or media and the information society. These networks function as online communities and periodically publish calls for pitches.