1 week Ago By Damon Cronshaw
The Hunter's public health unit says it will do everything it can to prevent vaccination rates for measles from falling further. Login or signup to continue reading Three members of a Lake Macquarie family contracted the disease after one returned from Vietnam, where there was a large-scale outbreak. The person, who was unvaccinated, spread the highly contagious virus to two family members.
Dr David Durrheim , the Hunter's director of public health, said "the big worry is multiple large outbreaks in countries that Aussies frequent for holidays or work". "No one should be travelling without checking they've had two valid recorded measles doses, if they were born after 1965," Dr Durrheim said. "The risk is too high.
" Two of the affected cases went to Belmont Hospital's emergency department for treatment, which could have spread the disease further. "If anyone is exposed to measles, they should call ahead to the hospital or their GP," Dr Durrheim said. They will then be isolated and booked as "the last patient of the day" to stop the spread.
An infected person also went to health food stores at Mount Hutton and Lake Haven shopping centres. "Measles is the most infectious virus we know," Dr Durrheim said. "It can take up to 21 days for symptoms to appear after an exposure.
"Symptoms to watch out for include fever, runny nose, sore eyes and a cough, usually followed three or four days later by a red, blotchy rash." He said measles cases "ring a loud alarm bell because it can get re-introduced". "If you're not vaccinated, it has an incredible ability to find you," he said.
"This is the downside of vaccines. They do such a good job that diseases become very rare and people become a bit complacent." He said 95 per cent vaccination coverage was needed to prevent ongoing large-scale measles outbreaks.
Dr Durrheim said the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccination rate for children aged five in the Hunter was about 95 per cent, a fall of 2 per cent since the pandemic. Measles vaccination fell during the pandemic, amid lockdowns. There was also a drop after the pandemic due to vaccine fatigue and anti-vaxxer belief.
"Most of that has been eliminated," Dr Durrheim said. "The fact there's still been this 2 per cent drop is of concern for measles. It can mean the disease can keep spreading.
" Asked if he was worried about further vaccination rate falls in the Hunter, he said: "No, we will do everything we can to avoid that happening". "We could have a local outbreak here, but it would be unlikely we'd see a large-scale outbreak because of herd immunity. "We encourage all parents to ensure they're little ones get the benefits of being vaccinated.
" He said the MMR vaccine was "very safe, so who would want to put their kids at risk?". About one in 15 children with measles develops pneumonia and one in 1000 develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain), national data shows. Dr Durrheim said people forget that these complications were "terrible".
"Measles can be a life-threatening disease," Dr Durrheim said. Northern NSW's vaccination rate for MMR is about 88 per cent, national immunisation data shows. "There could be large-scale outbreaks there that go on for months because enough people are susceptible," Dr Durrheim said.
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au Health and medicine, science, research, nutrition. Email: [email protected].
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