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Speaker 1: So there are concerns that measles maybe spreading across the

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Speaker 1: country undetected, and that's because four cases have been confirmed

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Speaker 1: so far, but the health authorities cannot explain how each

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Speaker 1: of them, or all of them rather, came to be infected.

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Speaker 1: Nicky Turner is the medical director at the Immunization Advisory

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Speaker 1: Center HID Nikki. Yeah, Curtis, if it's only four, how

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Speaker 1: serious is it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? The problem is it's so highly infectious, Like it's

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Speaker 2: way way more highly infectious than any of our other

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Speaker 2: respiratory bugs. So it spreads aerosol. If you're in the

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Speaker 2: corner of a room, you'll catch it if you're not immune.

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Speaker 2: So if we don't know it came from travel, then

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Speaker 2: where did it come from. We do not want this

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Speaker 2: bug spreading through our community. That's the problem.

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Speaker 1: How's our immunization rad or measles?

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Speaker 2: Well? The problem is this is across the whole population.

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Speaker 2: So currently it's sitting at around or seventy seven to

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Speaker 2: seventy eight percent for our young kids, which is not

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Speaker 2: great better than it was, but that's just for the

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Speaker 2: sort of two three year olds. It's across the whole

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Speaker 2: population up till people into their mid fifties. I've historically

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Speaker 2: had quite low coverage. There's loads of people walking around adolescence,

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Speaker 2: mid child as a mid adulthood older who may not

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Speaker 2: know if they've had vaccination or not. So that's the problem.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't just hit the little kids, it's across the

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Speaker 2: whole population.

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Speaker 1: What do you do, Nikkia? For example, I've got a

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Speaker 1: nine month old, she's not immunized because the first jab's

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Speaker 1: not until a year. What do I do?

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Speaker 2: That's right, So the vaccines were effective if you wait

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Speaker 2: till over a year. If we did have an outbreak

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Speaker 2: in your area and your child was at risk, then

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Speaker 2: we do give an extra dose. Under a year, it's

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Speaker 2: just not quite so effective. So it's not unsafe. So

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Speaker 2: and the other problem is it's a live vaccine, so

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Speaker 2: we can't give it to people with significant problems in

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Speaker 2: their immune system, you know, like people on cancer treatment

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Speaker 2: and things like that. So this is why it's a

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Speaker 2: community argument. We actually need to protect the community. It's

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Speaker 2: not just an individual issue.

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Speaker 1: NICKI thanks very much appreciated, Doctor Nikki Turner, medical director

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Speaker 1: at the Immunization Advisory Center. For more from Heather Dupless,

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Speaker 1: see Allen Drive Listen Live to News Talks A B

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