Villages of confirmed measles cases identified

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Since news of the 9 confirmed measles cases in the territory many have asked why the Department of Health has not identified the villages where the patients were from.

We put this question to Director of Health Tuileama Nua and he agreed to release the names of the villages.  Of the 9 confirmed cases, 6 are believed to have contracted the measles virus in their countries of origin then traveled here.

The other four cases are believed to have contracted measles locally. Three are laboratory confirmed and one is clinically diagnosed.

The villages where these people stayed in the case of the travelers, and live for those residing here are Amouli, Alofau, Fagatogo, Nuuuli, Tafuna, Mesepa, Malaeimi, Malaeloa, Vailoa.

From these cases DOH completed contact tracing for 131 people …that is they were asked about their whereabouts 4 days before the measles rash onset.  And a lit of everyone they had contact with was generated and their immunizations history was reviewed.  If there was no evidence of vaccination, DOH would give MMR shots.     55 vaccinations were administered during the contact tracing.

The Department of Health is awaiting results of 11 blood samples of suspected measles cases.  The samples are sent to Hawaii and the turnaround for the test results is usually 10 or more days.

Dr. Aifili John Tufa , the DOH epidemiologist says it’s important that anyone who suspects a family member or knows of others  showing symptom of measles to contact the measles hotline . We will come out to your home, you don’t have to come to the hospital , he said,

From his observations, since there’s a measles outbreak in the territory it’s expected that there would be more measles cases. ‘But we’re not seeing that,” he said, “either our population is well protected with the high immunization coverage or there are cases out there but people are not coming in to the hospital.”

The symptoms of measles are a fever, red watery eyes, a cough and rash.

The measles hotline numbers are 633-5871 and 6335872.