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Doctors report a growing interest in vaccination as whooping cough numbers continue to rise in Czechia. The country is now battling an epidemic which is expected to culminate at the end of April. Over 4,200 cases of whooping cough have been recorded this year alone, and doctors say the actual number of infected people could be higher since not all have symptoms of the disease. Ondřej Jakob, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said 12,000 adults have been vaccinated so far and a  further 18,000 vaccines are available at vaccination centres and GPs offices. Other European countries are also facing outbreaks of whooping cough.

A new overnight train connection from Prague to Brussels was launched this week. The new direct line connects the metropolises of the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium on one route. The journey takes 15 hours. European Sleeper will use its trains to connect the route from Prague via Ústí nad Labem, Děčín, Dresden, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp to Brussels and back three times a week. From Prague, the train departs from the main railway station every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at 6pm and is scheduled to arrive in Brussels the following day at 10:27 am.

Slovenia will support the Czech initiative to purchase shells for Ukraine from outside the European Union, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said on Tuesday during a working visit to Ljubljana. According to the Slovenian news agency, the government will allocate one million euros in support of the project.

Later today, the Czech foreign minister will hold talks in Ljubljana with his counterparts from Slovakia, Slovenia, Austria and Hungary. The C5 meeting of Central European states will cover EU enlargement and decision-making processes, aid to Ukraine and measures to curb illegal migration.

There are divides among the five countries on continued military support for Ukraine and also the decision making mechanisms in the EU, with Slovakia and Hungary refusing to provide Ukraine with further military aid and insisting that EU member states retain the right of veto in foreign-policy decision making. Regardless of the differences, Minister Lipavsky recently stressed that it is important to maintain dialogue.

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs has advised Czechs travelling to France to exercise heightened caution and inform the police about any suspicious incidents. Shortly after the terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow, the French administration issued a high terror alert and increased security across the country to the highest level. In a message spread within the Drozd travel system, the Czech foreign ministry warned Czechs in France to take the warnings seriously, keep a close eye on their luggage and report anything deemed suspicious.