Measles hit Ukraine

LVIV, Ukraine: At a recent meeting with priests in the western city of Lviv, paediatrician Kateryna Bulavinova pleaded with the clergy to help halt a worsening measles crisis in Ukraine. Addressing a dozen priests at a Lviv seminary, Bulavinova urged them to lead by example by getting themselves and their children vaccinated.

"Imagine the shock of parishioners if a priest died of measles," said Bulavinova, a consultant with UN children’s agency Unicef. It’s a message officials are hoping will have an impact in the deeply religious region, the hardest hit in a measles outbreak that saw Ukraine record the world’s highest increase in cases last year.

The ex-Soviet country of 45 million recorded more than 35,000 measles cases in 2018 and another 24,000 people were infected in the first two months of 2019, Unicef said in a report on Friday. At least 30 people have died since 2017, it said.