Illustrative stock photo (source: AP/TASR)
A state of emergency was declared in the Michalovce district in eastern Slovakia as of 15:00 on Tuesday, July 10 due to the breakout of a measles epidemic. Jana Cibereová, head of the Michalovce District Office, told the media after a crisis management session.
The situation started to worsen at the end of the previous week. From Friday to Sunday, 25 new cases of measles were recorded. The number of measles cases in Michalovce and Sobrance districts on July 9 stood at 161, of which 68 were confirmed by laboratory tests. The highest number of cases (89) was recorded in the town of Michalovce and in the village of Drahnov (35), which are the epicentres of the disease.
“Out of the total cases, four came from Great Britain,” said Dáša Račková, spokesperson of the Public Health Office, as cited by the TASR newswire.
More than 140 people have been admitted to the hospital, of whom 85 percent were children aged 0-18, Michalovce Hospital’s department of infectious diseases head doctor, Štefan Zamba, told the media. He added that the entire hospital staff has received inoculations and a strict visitation ban is in place for the entire facility.
“We ran into problems as early as this weekend in terms of capacity and processing such a high number of these patients,” said Zamba, adding that if the number of patients keeps growing, the new cases will be admitted by hospitals in Košice and Prešov.
