A Dunedin mother of two young children has described as "irresponsible" Public Health South's refusal to identify the location of an outbreak of English measles.
Kelly Adie rang the Otago Daily Times yesterday concerned her children, aged 3 weeks and 2, might unwittingly come into contact with a child carrying the highly contagious viral illness.
"I don't want to know who they [the infected children] are. I just want to know what schools and what institutions they go to. It's potentially quite dangerous for everybody else out there."
Four children from one family and a fifth from another have been diagnosed with measles - the first cases in Dunedin since 2001.
The four children had travelled to Vietnam last month.
Medical Officer of Health Dr John Holmes again yesterday declined to say which part of the city the family lived in or which school the children attended.
"As far as we can find out from talking to the parents, they got sick before school went back."
Dr Holmes said the fifth affected child "probably did go to school for one day but probably wasn't infectious at that stage".
"As far as we know, there has been a very tight circle of people who have been exposed and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we are on top of it."
Public health nurses had discussed the matter with the schools the children attended.
Dr Holmes acknowledged that public information about infectious disease was a "tricky" area.
"I don't think we need to point the finger anywhere at the moment."
Ms Adie said her older child had received the first of her two immunisation injections.
Dr Holmes said the first dose of vaccine was 95% to 97% effective and some countries stopped short of providing a second.
