MANILA, Philippines - An outbreak of measles in Australia has been traced to a Filipino dancer, Australian media has reported.
A report by the Sydney Morning Herald said the measles outbreak "began when a Filipino man with flu-like symptoms competed at the 2013 World Supremacy Battlegrounds (WSB), attended by more than 2000 people at the Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre in Homebush on December 7 and 8."
It said a 10-year-old girl from Adelaide, who attended the competition, was next to be infected with measles followed by a woman from Auckland, another person from Sydney, nine more from Turangi and Taupo in New Zealand, and a 21- year-old man from Melbourne.
Philippine Department of Health (DOH) Assistant Secretary Enrique Tayag cried foul over the report, saying it was not yet confirmed whether the Filipino dancer indeed contracted and/or spread the measles virus.
"Bakit 'yong MERS-Corona Virus, ni isa walang naninisi pa sa mga bansang Middle East. Tapos tayo dahil sa isang maliit na bansa sisihin ngayon. Huwag naman sana," Tayag said during a forum in Manila on Tuesday.
[Why is it that nobody blamed the countries in the Middle East when the MERS-Corona virus spread? And now, because we are a small country, we are being blamed. I hope it's not done that way.]
The Herald report said that when the disease broke out, WSB organizers contacted dancers who competed at Homebush and finally traced the spread of measles "to a competitor from a Manila dance troupe, FMD Xtreme, whose management said had turned up at the competition with flu-like symptoms."
"After further investigation, we have since discovered the source of the disease. An adult male dance competitor from the Philippines was infected by measles," WSB event director Marco Selorio said in a statement posted on the WSB Facebook account.
Selorio said that according to the dancer's team manager, the Filipino "showed flu-like symptoms on the day of international competition on December 8, but continued to dance after he received cold and flu tablets."
"He was bed-ridden for a few days after the event. He did not know that he had measles until the rashes appeared. His rashes did not show until he returned to the Philippines on 11th December. He was soon confined to hospital and isolated for two weeks until he was healed," said Selorio.
He said it was an "unfortunate incident that the spread of measles could not be prevented."
"Had we known earlier that the competitor or any of our dancers contracted the illness, we would have prevented them from entering the competition premises," Selorio added.
Meanwhile, the DOH is looking at the possibility that displaced victims of super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) may have contributed to the measles outbreak in Metro Manila.
But Tayag was quick to add that the agency wasn’t blaming the typhoon victims for the spread of the disease.
Tayag said the DOH was surprised to find out that many child-victims of the typhoon had not yet been vaccinated against measles. "Sa Manila noong magbakuna sila, laking gulat nila ng malaman nila na marami pa palang batang hindi nabakunahan.”
The DOH is now conducting a survey to find out if those who got sick with measles came from the areas devastated by Yolanda.
source: interaksyon.com
