Measles outbreak warning after infected woman visits Sydney shopping centres

A woman who visited shopping centres in western Sydney while infectious with measles this week has prompted a health warning for people to be vigilant for symptoms of the potentially fatal disease.

Measles is a highly contagious airborne virus, which much of the population is vaccinated against.

In a statement, NSW Health said the woman contracted the disease from an infant at the start of March.

She visited a Baby Bunting store located in the Blacktown Megacentre on March 24 between 3pm and 4pm, before visiting Kmart at Blacktown on March 24.

A few days later on Thursday, March 28, she made a trip to Winston Hills Mall between 12pm and 2.30pm.

She spent more than eight hours at Westmead Hospital Emergency Department on Friday, March 29 between 2pm and 10.30pm.

Measles is spread through the air when an infectious person coughs or sneezes.

The emergency department at Westmead Hospital.Credit: Dean Sewell

NSW Health have issued numerous measles alerts this year. There were three issued in January, three issued in February and a further two issued in March, including one for an infant.

Western Sydney Local Health District’s public health unit acting director Dr Conrad Moreira said the latest outbreak posed no ongoing risk to the public, but urged those who might have been exposed to monitor for symptoms.

“Symptoms include fever, sore eyes, runny nose and a cough followed three or four days later
by a red, blotchy rash that spreads from the head to the rest of the body,” Dr Moreira said.

In Australia, between 1996 and 2016 there were only three deaths caused by measles. Two doses of measles-containing vaccine provide lifelong protection against measles in 99 of 100 vaccinated people. About 93 per cent of Australian two-year-old children are vaccinated against measles.

The measles scare comes a month after NSW hospitals recorded a surge in school-age children with pneumonia presenting to emergency departments in NSW.