460 people with measles registered in Bulgaria, cases will increase

The cases of measles will continue to grow in the coming months, the chief state health inspector Dr. Angel Kunchev told BNT morning block on 22 April. At present, 460 measles cases were registered in the country, including 20 hospital staff.

The most affected regions are Sofia, Sofia-District and Blagoevgrad.

According to Dr. Kunchev, there are the so-called pockets with a large number of non-immunised people, which creates favourable conditions for the rapid spread of the highly contagious disease. In Plovdiv and Bourgas, where cases were also reported, there was no rapid increase in the number of patients, due to the higher levels of vaccination of the risky groups.

Dr. Angel Kunchev, Chief Health Inspector: If vaccines were applied to those who had to be vaccinated, we would have limitted the spread of measles.

He pointed out that the largest number of measles cases in Europe were in Ukraine, Northern Macedonia, Italy and France.

At the same time, if the critical mass of vaccination of the population was reached, it would not have been possible to import the virus from neighbouring countries, as it happened this year. Currently, Bulgaria is in sixth place in terms of spreading of measles, with only 13 cases registered in Bulgaria last year.