As in many other countries, New Zealand has seen a rise in measles, with measles outbreaks leading to at least 50 measles cases in Auckland, New Zealand so far this year.
While 50 cases of measles might not seem like a lot, especially when we have well over 150 cases here in the United States, it is when you consider how many more people live in the U.S. The population of the U.S. is just over 310 million people, while New Zealand has a much smaller population, at about 4.3 million people.
Like the U.S., their childhood immunization schedule recommends two doses of the MMR vaccine to protect kids against measles. They give the doses when kids are 15 months and 4 years old.
Not surprisingly, when you consider their large outbreak, many kids aren't getting all of their recommended shots. In the past year, only 83% of children were fully immunized at 18 months, 88% at 24 months, and only 74% were fully immunized by five years.
While that is up from immunization rates in 2005 and 1992, when only 77% and 60% of two year olds in New Zealand were fully immunized, that still means that a lot of children and young adults are likely susceptible to measles. As in the United States, when unvaccinated people travel out of the country, they can get measles and spread it to other unvaccinated people back home.
The last really big measles outbreak in New Zealand was in 1991, when they had about 10,000 cases and 7 people died, including 4 unvaccinated children. They had almost 2,000 cases in 1997.
As in France, with low immunization rates and a very large measles outbreak, with over 12,500 cases in 2011, health experts think that the measles outbreak in New Zealand will continue and may spread to other regions.
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