Vaccine

Prva TV reported this, adding that the child could not be vaccinated against the disease due to an auto-immune illness, and had spent the last three months at the Institute for Health Protection of Mother and Child in Belgrade.

The girl is the third child that died after contracting measles, and the 13th victim in all.

If the anti-vaccination trend gains pace, this may produce serious consequences, including an epidemic, warns Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ceyhan, a member of the immunization advisory board of the Health Ministry.

The number of families in Turkey who say they are against vaccination rose to 23,000 in 2017, up from just 183 in 2011, according to the head of the Turkish Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. 

The director of the Clinic for Infectious Diseases in Nis, Miodrag Vrbic, confirmed this.

According to Vrbic, the woman, who is the 11th victim, did not suffer from any chronic diseases before contracting measles.

The measles outbreak in Greece is showing no signs of abating as the number of cases has kept increasing in recent months, according to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (KEELPNO).

In its latest monthly report, the center notes that 1,976 cases were recorded in the period stretching from early last May, when the outbreak started, until March 4.

After a sixth patient died from measles complications - a 4-year-old child who had not been vaccinated against the disease - Brnabic said that "all of this is happening because citizens listened to people who do not have any medical knowledge" - i.e., those campaigning against vaccination.

The child, who was not vaccinated against measles and who developed pneumonia, is officially the sixth victim of the infectious disease.

There have been 2,896 cases of measles in central Serbia and in Serb municipalities in Kosovo since October, with 1,448 cases confirmed in Torlak Institute's laboratories.

The youngest patient was 15 days old, while the oldest was 65.

The measles outbreak in Greece is showing no signs of slowing down, with the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (KEELPNO) saying Thursday that there have been 1,829 recorded cases since last May.

The center said the number of cases doubled in the first two months of the year, compared to 922 reported in late December.

Greece's third measles-related death in under a year last week has raised concerns among health authorities that are seeking to increase vaccinations, particularly among vulnerable groups such as health workers and individuals born in or before the 1970s, who may have had the first booster but never followed up with the second.

The woman, whose initials are M.M. and who died in Belgrade's Clinic for Infectious and Tropical Diseases, is the fifth victim in Serbia, and the third in the capital.

Two patients - a 2-year-old child and a woman who had recently given birth - died in Nis, southern Serbia.