Only 62% of children have received the first measles vaccine dose, Klekovski warns of epidemic risk

Health Minister Sasho Klekovski urged parents to vaccinate their children against measles, warning that the low immunization rate could lead to an outbreak of an epidemic in Macedonia as well.

According to data he made public, only 62 percent of the population has received the first dose of the measles vaccine.

Klekovski said citizens should pay more attention to vaccination, particularly because of the rising number of measles cases in Kosovo and Bulgaria. He said the situation is cause for alarm and that more activities will be carried out in the coming days and weeks to encourage parents to vaccinate their children and increase coverage, as the possibility of a measles epidemic also exists in Macedonia.

The concern is not limited to the measles vaccine. Dragan Kočinski, head of the Department of Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at the Institute of Public Health, said that a decline in coverage had also been observed for other vaccines included in the routine immunization schedule.

Kočinski emphasized that none of the vaccines in the routine schedule had reached the target level of 95 percent for the first dose.

According to the figures he presented, coverage for the hepatitis B vaccine is 77 percent, for Haemophilus influenza 78 percent, and for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis 79 percent, even though an epidemic was recorded during 2024. The polio vaccine has coverage of 79 percent, while the measles vaccine has coverage of just 62 percent.

The vaccination rate for HPV is also low, standing at 51 percent. As for the newer vaccines, coverage with the rotavirus vaccine is 64 percent, while coverage with the pneumococcal vaccine is 80 percent.