Vaccine

The peak of the flu in Bulgaria is expected to be in January, Todor Kantardjiev, director of the Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, told Nova TV. According to him, the percentage of vaccinated people is ridiculously low.

Greece comes second behind Slovenia on the list of European Union countries where citizens have a growing amount of confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccinations, a recent report by the European Commission has shown.

Bulgaria, Latvia and France are the most vaccine-sceptic countries in the European Union, a survey suggests, reports EuroNews. 

Fewer than 70% of respondents in all three countries consider innoculations safe, according to the Brussels-commissioned poll.

Greece has one of Europe's lowest vaccination rates, according to a new study published by the European Commission which also found that immunity to measles has been dropping since 2010.

Only two out of three Bulgarians agree that vaccines are safe and 72.7 per cent believe they are effective - among the lowest level of trust among European Union nationals, according to a report published by the European Commission on Wednesday to mark World Polio Day.

A measles outbreak that has infected more than 3,200 people in Greece since May last year seems to be on the wane, as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reported no new cases over the past week.

The head of Moldova's Orthodox Church, Vladimir, which is subordinated canonically to Moscow, has urged his priests in an internal memo to help deal with the current epidemic measles through special prayers.

Clergy should "serve in churches and pray for a stop to the measles epidemic and contagious disease", the Metropolitan of Chisinau and All Moldova wrote in an internal memo.

Cases of measles in Europe have hit a record high, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

More than 41,000 people have been infected in the first six months of 2018, leading to 37 deaths.

Last year there were 23,927 cases and the year before 5,273. Experts blame this surge in infections on a drop in the number of people being vaccinated.

AFP More than 50 cows, sheep and horses have died in France's most serious outbreak of anthrax in two decades, according to officials who have warned of a vaccine shortage.

Authorities in the mountainous Hautes-Alpes region of southeastern France said the infection, which can spread to humans and is deadly in its rarest forms, had spread to 28 farms since June.

Alarmed by the growing anti-vaccination sentiments among parents in recent years, Turkey's Health Ministry has taken action to reverse this potentially dangerous trend.