Recent Measles Outbreaks: Urgent message from Ministry of Education and Te Aka Whai Ora – Māori Health Authority

New Zealand’s measles vaccination rate is far too low.

Childhood immunisation rates have fallen below the level needed to protect against outbreaks of measles. Young children can become seriously ill from measles, in previous years, hundreds of tamariki were hospitalised.

Te Aka Whai Ora – Māori Health Authority Chief Medical Officer, Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen is particularly concerned about the impact on Māori children. See here for his message.

Our Playcentre child immunisation register is maintained by our regional teams and is provided to Regional Public Health in the event of an outbreak. This is critically important during an outbreak to reduce the risk of the disease spreading and to keep tamariki safe.

To uphold the Privacy Act 2020, centres are not to collect or hold the immunisation information of Playcentre tamariki. This is initially collected at the time of enrolment by the regional office (Regional Funding Administrators) and members should now send any updated immunisation information to their regional office.

Whānau can talk to their family doctor, local pharmacist or Healthline about the MMR and other vaccinations.

Consultation on Early Learning Regulatory System regulations

The Ministry of Education is continuing their review of the Early Learning Regulatory System (the Review), to ensure it is clear and fit for purpose to support high quality education and care outcomes for young children. You can find information on open consultations here.

We are now seeking input from members who are interested in this review and keen to be part of a working group to help with the formulation of feedback on the proposed changes. If you are interested, please send your contact details to [email protected] as soon as possible.

The current round of consultation is open now and closes 17 February – this relates to:

  • adding new conditions to a provisional licence;
  • defining ‘permanently ceased to operate’ for the purpose of cancelling a licence;
  • providing for services to be able to temporarily close; and
  • defining ‘locally-based’ for persons responsible in licensed home-based education and care services.

Due to time constraints with this round, we are consulting with our regional teams to complete this feedback.

There will be several more opportunities to contribute during the year so we will hold the ‘applications’ open until the 20th February after which we will be in contact with you to coordinate the next round of feedback.