A short history of measles in NZ

9 October 2025

Arts and culture, Health and medicine, Faculty of Arts and Education

Mother says be careful
Not to go and play,
'Cause Johnnie's got the measles
Just across the way.
The parson has the measles,
Teacher has them too,
They are so infectious.
What am I to do?
excerpt from poem by Pat Price, aged 14, in the NZ Herald, October 1938

If any readers have doubts about why we need to take measles seriously, why vaccination vans have been sent to Northland and Queenstown, it's worth reflecting on the devastating history of measles in this country, and the risk it still poses.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to infect humans, a virus that spreads through the air, and lingers there; a person can become infected even one or two hours after a contagious person has left the room. To prevent outbreaks, 95 percent or more of the population needs immunity.

Along with smallpox and tuberculosis, measles was one of the deadliest infectious diseases that accompanied European exploration and colonisation from the 15th century onwards, in terms of its impact on Indigenous populations. The first recorded measles outbreak in Aotearoa New Zealand occurred in 1835 in the South Island, and the first North Island epidemic was in 1854. Both affected Māori severely, with thousands of deaths in 1854 alone.

Measles and other infectious diseases were common causes of death for European children on their sea journeys to New Zealand, either on the ship or at the quarantine station. The worst recorded measles epidemic for the growing settler population happened in 1874-1875; the Auckland province was most affected, with 158 deaths among Pākehā. As the population grew and New Zealand became more connected to the wider world, we had more and more measles epidemics.

Both back then and now we have tended to think of measles as only a childhood disease, but it never was, and some years were particularly notable for a high number of adult cases.

By the time measles vaccination began in New Zealand in 1969, we knew a lot more about just how wide-ranging the damage from a measles outbreak can be. One complication is a rare disease called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a usually fatal brain disorder that can develop years after a measles infection.

In 1893, newspapers reported police officers, teachers, and others sick with measles, and often entire families. The 17-year-old Lady Augusta Boyle, the daughter of New Zealand's Governor, had reportedly seemed to recover from measles before relapsing after catching a 'chill'. Lady Augusta recovered from her 'chill'; others did not. An article in the New Zealand Herald that same year recounted the story of an Auckland family in which a 22-year-old young woman died after she 'caught a chill' following measles. Her older brother also caught measles and died after developing bronchitis and pleurisy.

New Zealand's worst measles year in the past century was 1938, with 375 deaths among both children and adults. According to F S Maclean's history of public health in New Zealand, 10 percent of all Māori deaths that year were due to measles. Maclean was Wellington's Medical Officer of Health during the 1938 epidemic, and public health messaging from him and other officials stressed the seriousness of the disease, which came with the risk of serious and potentially fatal complications like pneumonia.

By the time measles vaccination began in New Zealand in 1969, we knew a lot more about just how wide-ranging the damage from a measles outbreak can be. One complication is a rare disease called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a usually fatal brain disorder that can develop years after a measles infection. Miscarriage and premature birth are also potential consequences of measles infection when the virus is contracted during pregnancy, as seen this past week in Alberta, Canada.

We continue to learn more about just how dangerous this disease can be. Recent research by American epidemiologist and immunologist Michael Mina has demonstrated the insidious effects of measles infection on the immune system.

This includes immunosuppression in the short term, and sometimes in the longer term 'immune amnesia'. This means not only can measles make you vulnerable to other pathogens in the days and weeks after infection, but you can also lose some of the previous antibody protection to diseases you'd recovered from, or already been vaccinated against.

Work by another team led by immunologist Velislava Petrova has shown how measles targets immune memory cells called B lymphocytes or B cells - the cells that make antibodies. With much of your immune memory lost, you'd now be vulnerable to other vaccine-preventable diseases like polio, hepatitis, and chickenpox - unless you get revaccinated.

In my research with Australian colleague Phil Roberts (Australian National University) we showed that in Victoria, Australia, deadly epidemics of the severe 19th-century form of scarlet fever were regularly preceded by large measles epidemics.

There was a similar co-occurrence of measles and epidemics of bacterial diseases in New Zealand, especially diphtheria and scarlet fever. Our new understanding of the effects of measles on the immune system helps explain why that happened - and gives us knowledge we can act on today.

The World Health Organization finally declared measles officially eliminated in New Zealand in 2017. Yet just two years later, New Zealand experienced a measles epidemic which spread to Samoa in September 2019 with particularly devastating results. By January 2020, more than 5700 cases of measles and 83 deaths had been reported in Samoa out of a population of 200,874.

With measles epidemics recurring around the world, vaccination levels in New Zealand have dipped well below the 95 percent target for herd immunity. This is the point at which if someone brings in measles to a population, it has nowhere to go and the virus is stopped in its tracks.

Public health researchers have continued to warn of the urgent need for catch-up immunisation.

By vaccinating against measles, we can prevent the immediate risks of measles and its potential complications and avoid outbreaks of other diseases that measles can make our immune systems 'forget', which we thought we had consigned to pre-vaccine 20th-century history.

This article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland.

This article was first published on Newsroom, Open the door to measles, and it won't stop there, 9 October, 2025

Media contact

Margo White I Research communications editor Mob 021 926 408 Email [email protected]