O’Connor announced the school will be closed for Form 3 and 4 (Year 9 and 10) students today while officials undertake contact tracing.
“Public Health will be checking the New Zealand vaccination records of Form 3 and 4 students, which are held both nationally and at the school,” he wrote
“They will be identifying any students who do not have records of two doses of MMR vaccination after the age of 12 months.
“Timetabled examinations for students in Forms 5–7 will proceed as scheduled.”
This latest announcement comes as the outbreak grows to 13 cases with two more announced yesterday.
The first case in Auckland was considered a close contact, while the other is also in Auckland and currently has no links to any other cases.
Health NZ has recently said the risk of further measles cases, contacts and exposures across the country remains “very high”.
There are currently 13 known measles cases, and the number of close contacts has risen to about 2100.
Director of public health Corina Grey said some of the cases have been hospitalised.
University of Canterbury senior lecturer in epidemiology, Anna Howe, told The Front Page she thinks there is community transmission and we’re sitting in an “extremely precarious position”.
“It’s just a case of waiting a few more weeks, probably to see how bad it’s going to get.
“Measles is one of our most infectious diseases, and so in an unvaccinated population, one person can potentially make 12 to 18 other people sick,” she said.
Measles is so infectious that it requires an immunity rate of at least 95% in the community to prevent spread, officials say.
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.
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