David Seymour has given updated guidance around school attendance as the country’s measles outbreak grows, spreading into Wellington and Auckland colleges.
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour spoke to media outside an Auckland school today, where the community is being offered testing for measles on site.
It is understood that a number of people considered as close contacts – and therefore currently in quarantine – were on-site to be tested themselves.
“I wanted to draw attention to the efforts that have been made in schools like [the one visited today] to get serology testing done so that people can know their vaccination or immunisation status and make good choices as this measles outbreak is stamped out.”
Seymour said today there have been 14 cases; 10 are now retired, four remain active.
“However, there remain around 2000 contacts that are being traced and people are being put into isolation in order to ensure that we stamp out any further spread.”
Seymour said measles is a highly infectious virus, and it’s also a very dangerous virus.
“So it’s critical that we succeed at this time, while also balancing other objectives that we have as a society, including education.”
Seymour gave guidelines for the public regarding attending school during the outbreak.
“Our Government has had a discussion and we’re very clear that if you are double-immunised, you are therefore safe from measles, and you should not allow this outbreak to interrupt your education.
“And for the last few days at this school, having had to shut for Year 9 and 10 students for one day, there’s been a huge amount of work to identify the immunisation records of every student.”
Seymour said students who have been born overseas may not have available records, so serology testing is important, as well as for people who were born “a long time ago”.
“But since 2005, New Zealanders [have] had excellent immunisation records. So anybody who is a student at the school, if they were born in New Zealand, will have good records.”
Seymour said schools need to have a clear view of which students are immunised and which ones “possibly need to stay home if there’s an outbreak or need to get immunised as soon as possible”.
Seymour, who was due to get serology testing himself, was unable to in the end.
The testing checks whether people have had their measles vaccinations and can be used to ensure students are able to continue attending school.
There are currently 14 known measles cases in New Zealand, and the number of close contacts has risen to about 2100.
A Year 11 student at Wellington College has been diagnosed with measles. They were at school between October 13 and 15, and also travelled on the Wellington College school bus No 736 on the mornings of those days.
A steady stream of parents and students – and whole families – arrived on the school grounds as Seymour spoke to the media. Many wore face masks.
Auckland Grammar School is also affected. Parents have been told that a person infected with the illness was at the school on Friday, October 24.
They did not say whether the person involved is a student or a staff member, but students in Years 9 and 10 had been in contact with the person and, as a result, they were to stay home while public health officials carried out contact-tracing measures.
Health NZ said the risk of further measles cases, contacts and exposures across the country remains “very high”.
Yesterday, Health Minister Simeon Brown said he is receiving advice on allowing babies to receive the measles vaccine.
Young children in New Zealand don’t normally get their first MMR vaccine until they reach 12 months. It is given as part of the National Immunisation Schedule at ages 12 months and 15 months.
Brown said he is receiving advice on Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) zero vaccination, which is a vaccination for infants aged 4 months to under 12 months administered during measles outbreaks for added protection.
In 2019, New Zealand had its largest measles outbreak since 1997, in which 700 people in New Zealand required hospital treatment and 83 died in Samoa.
Health NZ said getting two doses of the MMR vaccine after 12 months of age protects 99% of people from measles and is free for most people.
Measles is so infectious that it requires an immunity rate of at least 95% in the community to prevent spread.
Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.