AUT student confirmed as second measles case in Auckland

Auckland Regional Public Health Service is urging Aucklanders to protect themselves against measles by getting two doses of the MMR vaccine. Photo / File

An AUT student is the second person to have contracted measles in the past few weeks after travelling on a flight with someone who was contagious.

Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) is now working with the university to identify anyone who may have been in classes with the person while they were infectious and is not immune, in order to stop it spreading further.

Anyone in Auckland's CBD from March 1 to 6 and the Albany Westfield shopping centre from March 6 between noon and 4pm may have also been exposed to the disease when the student was walking around.

The student is likely to have caught the disease on Singapore Airlines flight SQ285, which landed in Auckland on 22 February 2018.

ARPHS is warning those who in may have been in contact with the person and are not immune to stay at home in quarantine to prevent the disease spreading.

Last month APRHS issued a measles alert for passengers on the flight - particularly those seated in rows 31 to 49 - to watch out for the symptoms after a passenger on the plane was found to have measles.

ARPHS Medical Officer of Health Dr Josephine Herman said the best protection against the measles was getting vaccinated with two doses of the MMR vaccine.

"Measles is very easily transmitted through coughing, sneezing or simply walking past someone who is infected and breathing their contaminated air. If one person has measles, 90 per cent of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected."

Measles is a highly infectious disease which can have serious complications. Anyone born before 1969 is likely to be immune to the disease without having had the vaccine.