LISBON, April 19 (Xinhua) -- A 17-year old girl died in Lisbon's Dona Estefania hospital on Wednesday in the early morning after contracting measles amid an outbreak.
She had been admitted to the intensive care unit during the weekend with pneumonia, after contracting measles.
It is the first known death amid an outbreak in Portugal. The Portuguese authorities said earlier this week that they had already been notified of 23 cases of measles since the beginning of the year, with 11 cases confirmed and 12 being investigated.
The country's director general for health on Monday called on parents to vaccinate their children "without hesitation."
Measles is a highly contagious viral disease, which affects mostly children. The disease is continuing to spend across Europe, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The WHO has warned of a "potential to cause large outbreaks wherever immunization coverage has dropped below the necessary threshold of 95 percent."
The countries with largest measles outbreaks are Romania and Italy, with Romania seeing 3,400 cases and 17 deaths since January 2016 and Italy facing a rise in the first weeks of 2017 with 238 cases.
