At least 10 people have been infected with measles in a Dutch village where many parents have not vaccinated their children due to religious reasons.

Nine children and one adult were diagnosed with the disease in Urk, a Protestant fishing village where vaccination rates are low compared to the national average.

Around 61 per cent of people in the village have been vaccinated against measles, compared to 92.9 per cent in the wider population.

The Dutch health service said it was investigating whether it was necessary to inoculate or administer antibodies to those who have been in contact with infected patients, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported.

Many people in the village believe only God has power over life and death and so vaccinations are not permitted, according to the newspaper.

The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Show all 7 1 /7 The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Charlie Sheen Sheen fought a legal battle against ex-wife Denise Richards to try and block her from vaccinating their children. Richards of course won and Sheen was reportedly so bitter that he paid the paediatrician bill entirely in nickels Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Gwyneth Paltrow Paltrow's "health and wellness" company Goop hosted a notorious anti-vaccine speaker at their 2018 Goop Summit Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Rob Schneider Schneider demanded the freedom to decline vaccination Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Jenny McCarthy McCarthy has claimed that "people are dying from vaccinations", believes that her son caught autism from a vaccine and has pushed her opinions on the topic publicly for many years AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Bill Maher Maher has long spoken against vaccines sating on Larry King live that "a flu shot is the worst thing you can do." His stance appears to stem from a distrust of government AFP/Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Alicia Silverstone In Silverstone's book The Kind Mama, she wrote that "there is increasing anecdotal evidence from doctors who have gotten distressed phone calls from parents claiming their child was ‘never the same’ after receiving a vaccine." Getty The famous faces of the anti-vaccine movement Andrew Wakefield Godfather of the anti-vax movement, disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield famously published a report in the medical journal Lancet claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in 1998. The Lancet retracted the report in 2010 and Wakefield was struck off the medical register PA

A spokesman for the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment told the paper the infected people come from two families who are in close contact with each other.

They said that meant the cases were isolated.

Earlier this year, preliminary data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed the global resurgence of measles has continued, with the number of cases quadrupling in the first three months of 2019 when compared to the same period last year.

Initial figures found 112,163 cases were reported across 170 countries by April, compared to 28,124 in the same period last year.

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A global poll conducted earlier this month found Europeans are the most likely to believe vaccines were unsafe and ineffective.

In Europe, 16 per cent of people said they thought the jab was unsafe, and in the UK one in 11 agreed.