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Measles spotted in Mullum |
A case of measles was identified in a high school aged boy from the Mullumbimby area in the last week of July, the first case of the highly contagious disease found in the Northern Rivers for two years and the first confirmed case of a NSW resident acquiring measles in Australia this year.
The Northern Rivers Public Health Unit informed the school and family contacts of the child of the potential exposure risk and asked unimmunised contacts to exclude themselves from school or their workplaces for seven days and to minimise unnecessary contact with people.
PHU nurse Marianne Trent recommends that GPs, particularly in the Byron Shire, should be on the lookout for further cases of measles and contact the Public Health Unit on 6620 7500 on clinical suspicion. All suspected cases should be laboratory tested as per the guidelines recently sent to all practices. If a practice does not have these guidelines they can be obtained through the public health unit or their local laboratory. She also urges doctors to vaccinate unimmunised children.
A measles epidemic in the Campania region of southern Italy, an area with a similar immunisation rate (65%) to the Byron Shire (67%), has already resulted in 13 cases of encephalitis and three deaths in the first five months of this year. The three deaths were of children aged 6 months, 4 years and 10 years.
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