NSW Health has issued a warning after four people were diagnosed with the highly contagious measles virus in the past week.
Two of the cases were travellers on flights from Cairns to Sydney Airport on March 29.
The other two were young children who were possibly infectious on a flight from India that arrived in Sydney on March 30.
The director of communicable diseases for the NSW Health, Vicky Sheppeard, said the warning was issued because all four people had recently been in places where they could have infected others.
She said it was not an outbreak yet, but there was a possibility that others had been infected.
“We need to get the message out, so that people can be aware of measles symptoms if they are susceptible,” Dr Sheppeard said.
She said infants under the age of one were susceptible to contracting and people aged in their 20s and 30s who had only received one dose, or no doses, of the measles vaccine might also be vulnerable to the infection.
“Until you’ve had two dozes of measles vaccine you are considered susceptible,” she said.
“All four cases came through Sydney Airport.
“We’ve also had one of the cases at Royal North Shore emergency department and another case at Mt Druitt Hospital emergency department and a medical centre at Blacktown.”
Dr Sheppeard said in NSW all health workers were fully vaccinated, so health workers were not thought to be at risk and the patients that had been identified had been treated.
“But there might be others who were perhaps walking through the emergency department and not able to be identified and contacted and are at risk, so it’s important to get the message out to those people as well,” she said.
Measles highly infectious, travels through the air
Dr Sheppeard said measles was the most infectious disease known to man.
“In 2012, we had one case of measles that resulted a further 169 cases over the period of a few months,” she said.
“Just one case can cause an outbreak and so by informing people about measles, about the symptoms, and about how it can be prevent it, we hope to contain this and have as few further cases as possible.
“It’s transmitted through the air, so you can have a person with measles in a room, they can leave it and you can walk in there 15 minutes later and still catch the infection.”
She said measles started with a fever, a cough, runny nose and sore red eyes and after three or four days of those symptoms a blotchy red rash started on the face, then spread to the body, the arms and the legs.
“If you haven’t had those two doses [of the vaccine] and you think you’re developing the symptoms — particularly if you’ve been exposed to these other cases — then if you’re going to the doctor we encourage you to call ahead so you’re not in the waiting room with other people,” she said.
“Similarly if you go to an emergency department, tell the triage nurse that you’re worried you may have measles, so you can be isolated quickly to stop spreading the infection to other people.”