Gauteng takes over as province with most new measles cases

Gauteng reported 12 new laboratory-confirmed measles cases in the week between February 6 and 12, the largest number of new cases of all the outbreak-affected provinces.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) made this observation on Thursday as it revealed that in the past two weeks, 76 laboratory-confirmed measles cases were detected across the country, of which 73 were from the five outbreak-affected provinces.

This brings to 560 the number of laboratory-confirmed cases in SA, 537 of which were reported from five provinces with declared measles outbreaks.

Limpopo had the most cases (190), followed by Mpumalanga (94), the North West (169), Gauteng (61) and the Free State (23).

The NICD said in week 5 (between January 30 and February 5), the percentage of samples testing positive (PTP) increased to 20% of the 251 samples tested, compared with a lower PTP (13%) in week 4.

“The PTP for we1ek 6 (February 6 to 12) has further increased to 25%,” the NICD said.

In provinces where an outbreak had been declared, the most affected age groups were still the 5–9-year-olds (41%) with a considerable proportion of cases reported among the 1-4 year (26%) and 10-14 age groups (18%).

“Vaccination campaigns should therefore also include children aged 10 to 14.”

Meanwhile, the Ekurhuleni municipality announced its measles campaign was gaining momentum with almost 300,000 children vaccinated.

“The outreach programme is now moving with speed to secluded areas as the city pursues the one-million target. The city will be relying on its mobile clinics to reach as many children in the far-flung areas to curb the spread of measles in the region.”

The municipality said the campaign started early last month and the deadline has been extended to March 31.

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