Following a number of deaths of children and infants caused by measles, the Healthcare Ministry repeated its order that all parents of children over 6 months living in Skopje must vaccinate their children immediately.

Usually the MMR vaccine was given after the first year, but the Ministry is moving the vaccination forward. The Ministry is also preparing teams which would give the vaccines outside of the local clinics and ambulances.

Two children barely aged over a year and one aged six months died in the past three days from measles, prompting alarm in the healthcare system.

The Ministry assures the public that all vaccines are of good quality and that no expired vaccines are in use. This assurance is necessary after the Ministry put expired vaccines in circulation, causing anger among the parents and hugely increasing the levels of mistrust in the healthcare system.

Other measures to reduce the spread of measles in the city include vaccinating healthcare employees but also a strict ban on hospital visits.

It was estimated that 15.000 children were unvaccinated before the epidemic started, and that since then, 6.276 children took the MMR vaccine.