Measles in Bor: 14 Cases, Hospital Bans Visitors
The measles outbreak in Bor began on one street in the Sever neighborhood and now covers the whole city. Here is what local doctors said and what parents can check.
Has measles reached the whole of Bor? It has. The outbreak, which in early October was declared only on Ulica vojske Jugoslavije in the Sever neighborhood, now covers the entire city, and the General Hospital in Bor has banned visitors on all wards.
Javorka Stankulic, an epidemiologist and head of the Center for Preventive Health Care at the Bor Health Center, said the epidemiological situation in the city is unstable because of a rising number of measles cases and other respiratory infections. One case of influenza has also been registered.
How many people in Bor have measles?
So far, 14 people have fallen ill. Stankulic gave the figure herself:
“In total, 14 people have fallen ill in this outbreak, of whom six are children and eight are adults.”
According to her, all of them are doing well. The infection first appeared among unvaccinated children, including babies under one year old, who are not yet due for the vaccine under the immunization schedule. The Bor epidemiologist points out that this is not the first time:
“This disease can be prevented with a vaccine, but here we are, after almost 10 years, since we had the last outbreak in 2017.”
That year, the outbreak spread across all of Serbia.
What is the health service doing to stop the spread?
Health workers are running epidemiological investigations, isolating and treating the sick, and educating the public. The Health Center is going through its records to find which children have not received the MMR vaccine, and their parents will be called again for immunization.
Adults are being checked as well, including the staff of the institution itself:
“Of course, we are also checking the vaccination status of all employees in our health institution.”
Stankulic also explained where older people stand. Younger generations should have received two doses of the vaccine, while those born before 1984 got one dose and another in 2019, during a catch-up immunization campaign. Anyone whose antibody test is inconclusive gets one dose, and anyone with no antibodies gets two.
How can you recognize measles?
The illness starts with a high fever of 39 degrees Celsius, up to 40 in small children, along with weakness and loss of appetite. Then spots appear on the palate, which doctors call Koplik spots. Stankulic says:
“That is a completely reliable warning light that we are dealing with measles.”
The rash breaks out only after five to seven days. An infected person spreads the virus for five days before the rash appears and five days after it, which means they can infect others before anyone suspects measles.
The Health Center is urging parents to check their children’s vaccination status and to respond to the call for immunization.
Why are visits to the Bor hospital banned?
The ban was first introduced on the children’s ward, then in the maternity ward and gynecology, and it now applies across the whole institution. The reason is the high risk of respiratory infections, including measles and influenza, at a time of year when influenza normally spreads.
There is one exception: with the staff’s approval, a single visitor may enter, briefly and wearing a mask. Stankulic notes that the Bor hospital is not the first to do this:
“Zajecar banned visits before us, and they do not have measles.”
