Ljubljana - Health Minister Janez Poklukar condemned at a press conference on Wednesday the verbal and physical violence that health workers and experts who publicly promote vaccination have recently been subject to. He said violence would not be tolerated and expressed support to all victims of such violence.

This comes after media reported that two men attacked Borut Štrukelj, a researcher and professor at the Ljubljana Faculty of Pharmacy in Ljubljana the past weekend. Štrukelj, who has been publicly promoting Covid vaccines, announced after the attack he was withdrawing from the public.

The head of coordinators at the Stožice testing centre, Tatjana Lekšan, also told the press on Tuesday that people waiting to be tested were often very impatient and took it out on the staff.

"On behalf of the healthcare I declare that violence will not be tolerated," the minister said, adding that he believed that as a society "we are united on this and distance ourself from such actions".

Poklukar said health workers could not comprehend how anyone could even consider that medical workers would want to harm people or even poison them. "We are always here for you, to help you, cure you and save your lives," he stressed.

"Perhaps we can understand only that we are all exhausted from the pandemic, and have enough sometimes ..." he said, adding this must not be an excuse for verbal and physical violence.