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'A question of time': experts fear Balkans measles outbreak
The decline in inoculation rates, largely due to a rise in misinformation, has experts bracing for an imminent measles outbreak in Montenegro and its nearby Balkan neighbours.
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A health worker administers a measles vaccine in a hospital of Montenegro's capital Podgorica on February 16, 2020. (AFP/Savo Prelevic)
D
espite vaccinating her first child, Vanja drew a line when it came time to inoculate her second and decided he would not be receiving the measles shot.
The 44-year-old psychologist living in Montenegro's capital Podgorica gave a host of reasons why she changed her mind, all after binging on a deluge of information shared in an online group she belongs to.
"I don't trust the vaccination system. We lack information and education," Vanja told AFP, asking that her surname be withheld.
"I feel great responsibility and it wasn't a simple and easy decision to make."
Vanja's position is increasingly common in Montenegro which has the lowest measles vaccine uptake globally with just 23.8 percent of infants inoculated in 2020 with the first of two shots, according to World Health Organization data.
The dramatic decline in inoculation rates has public health experts bracing for an imminent measles outbreak in Montenegro and its nearby Balkan neighbours where vaccination uptake has also plummeted, largely due to a rise in misinformation, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"The risk of a measles outbreak is high," Dragan Jankovic, an immunisation official with the WHO, told AFP.
