Health Ministry officials announced Thursday that the ministry would speed up a program to vaccinate thousands of workers against the measles virus. The program will begin next week. Officials explained that while all health ministry workers had been told that measles vaccines were recommended, some apparently chose not to vaccinate themselves.
The vaccination program will go into effect following a recent outbreak of measles in Europe and Israel. Several people have been diagnosed with measles in Israel in recent weeks, leading to public health scares. Among those infected were a doctor at Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem and a nurse attending a conference in Eilat, both of them health ministry employees.