A measles outbreak in the South Island of New Zealand is causing serious concern, with 22 confirmed cases and emergency supplies of vaccine being rushed from around the country.
Amid the worst outbreak “in years”, health officials have warned cases will spread in the coming days and weeks, as around one-fifth of people living in the affected Canterbury region have not had their full suite of vaccinations, or any at all.
“It can now be assumed that measles is circulating widely in our community,” the Canterbury District Health Board said in a statement.
Parents say they are living in fear of their children contracting the illness, as New Zealand’s third-largest city, Christchurch, and surrounding regions run out of vaccines.
Generally, children are eligible for their first measles shot when they are 12 months old, meaning babies especially vulnerable to contracting the disease.
“It’s a bit of an overwhelming time, but we’ll just stay as housebound as we can,” Hayley Vogel, a mother of two, told local TV.
Vogel – from Rangiora, 30km north of Christchurch – added that numerous calls to her health centre to get her children vaccinated have gone unanswered, as the service was occupied dealing with the outbreak.
“I can’t even get through at all. I’ve tried multiple times each day,” Vogel said. “I just don’t understand why we’ve even got to this stage.”
Measles cases are rising globally, including in wealthy nations such as the United States and Germany, where some parents shun the vaccines mostly for philosophical or religious reasons, or concerns, debunked by medical science, that the vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) could cause autism.
A number of measles outbreaks have occurred in New Zealand in the last few years, but the current Canterbury outbreak is significant and spreading quickly.
“Unimmunised people who come within two metres of an infectious person, however briefly, have a 90% chance of contracting measles,” the Canterbury district health board said in a statement.
Media and social media websites such as Facebook have been asked to monitor their coverage of measles, to ensure only accurate advice and information is published.
Health experts are concerned that the Canterbury outbreak is the tip of the iceberg in New Zealand, and further outbreaks in different parts of the country are expected as the year progresses.
The first case of measles was recorded in Canterbury in February. An extra 3,000 doses of the vaccine are slated to arrive in the region on Sunday, followed by a further 18,000 mid-week. In total, 100,000 are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
The latest outbreak came from people who were thought not to be fully immunised. People are considered immune if they have received two doses of the MMR vaccine, have had a measles illness previously, or were born before 1969.
New Zealand’s ministry of health said in a statement that since 2012 all cases of measles in New Zealand came from travellers bringing the disease from overseas.