03/11/2025
My colleague Barbara Roberts, who is a homeopath and a pharmacist, has written this excellent article about measles. If you are concerned about it for your children, please get in touch.
𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐙𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝’𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤
At the moment we have an outbreak in New Zealand… of fear. There is a lot of effort going into scaring the population about measles and its complications, and pushing MMR vaccination.
My personal opinion is that vaccination is a personal choice- and if you consider all of the risks for the disease and the vaccine, and you choose to go ahead with vaccination I am happy to support you- this includes with homeopathy and targeted supplements like vitamin C and cod liver oil (for vitamin A and D) to support the production of antibodies.
But first let’s address the fear.
Here is the most inflammatory news post I have seen: “The potentially fatal measles virus has broken out…” (1)
So let’s have a look at that. “Potentially fatal” - the last time there was a death in New Zealand was 1991 - it is hard to get accurate numbers for this outbreak, because measles did not become a notifiable disease, but there was an estimated 40,000-60,000 cases, and 7 deaths - so 0.0175% to 0.0117% of people died from measles (2).
The last measles major outbreak in New Zealand was in 2019, with 2190 cases (3). There were no deaths. Of those, 80% were unvaccinated, but of the 20% of vaccinated cases, 35% had received their two doses (and therefore were considered “fully vaccinated”) (3). There were 678 hospital admissions for measles, and 108 for “other relevant diagnoses” with measles as an additional diagnosis. ESR calculates this as 35% of cases, however they also note that “Hospital admission data may include multiple admissions (to the same or different hospitals) for the same case” (3). I remember seeing after this an official information act request that showed that a hospital admission was counted as a certain number of hours at the hospital, whether or not you were ‘admitted’, however I have no reference for this.
I would like to acknowledge that the NZ outbreak of 2019 spread to Samoa, where there were many more deaths. In my opinion this is likely due to poorer nutritional status and lifestyle factors, similar to how there are many more deaths from many communicable diseases in Africa and Asia for similar reasons. It does not make it any less tragic, but we need to be careful about extrapolating data to New Zealand.
Physicians for Informed Choice is a US based website, run by doctors, that considers the real risks of a range of disease, and the vaccines themselves. I highly recommend reading their information on measles, but here is the highlights. Their data is taken from the CDC, so is based on the US population.
“Research studies and national tracking of measles have documented the following:
* 1 in 10,000 or 0.01% of measles cases are fatal.
* 3 to 3.5 in 10,000 or 0.03–0.035% of measles cases result in seizure.
* 1 in 20,000 or 0.005% of measles cases result in measles encephalitis.
* 1 in 80,000 or 0.00125% of cases result in permanent disability from measles encephalitis.
* 7 in 1,000 or 0.7% of cases are hospitalized.
* 6 to 22 in 1,000,000 or 0.0006–0.0022% of cases result in subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE).
* 1 in 93,000 or 0.001% of measles cases with normal levels of vitamin A result in permanent disability or death.” (4)
So just to clarify here - their data verifies my numbers from the 1991 outbreak in New Zealand for fatal cases of measles. The other complications they mention - seizures, encephalitis, and SSPE are RARE.
Most importantly, vitamin A is protective and reduces the risk of permanent disability or death SIGNIFICANTLY.
Pneumonia is the most common cause of hospitalisation from measles, and the protocol for anyone hospitalised with measles is high dose vitamin A for two days: From the starship website
* 200 000 IU for children ≥ 12 months of age
* 100 000 IU for infants 6-11 months of age
* 50 000 IU for infants younger than 6 months of age (5)
I hope this dose of real life facts has reduced your anxiety around the complications of measles.
In the case of measles infection, I would also recommend vitamin C and the appropriate homeopathic remedy. Some of the common ones are:
𝐴𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒– this is your remedy for first stages of anything. You can also use it if you have been exposed and anticipate getting measles, to reduce the severity. Symptoms include a high fever, especially coming on late at night around midnight, thirst and eyes may be painful.
𝐸𝘶𝑝𝘩𝑟𝘢𝑠𝘪𝑎– swollen, streaming eyes, with tears that may irritate the face, as well as a runny nose, may have a headache and chills.
𝑃𝑢𝑙𝑠𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑎– when the rash is slow to appear, and it is more like a cold, with thick yellow mucus, and may have a chesty cough. They feel better in the open air and want company and sympathy.
𝐵𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑎– also when the rash is slow to appear. May have a painful Cough, a headache and feel worse when moving, so want to stay perfectly still. They can also have a fever with chills, a dry mouth and be thirsty.
When the rash appears you may consider
𝐴𝑝𝑖𝑠 – burning, stinging rash, may appear shiny or puffy. Rash is better for cold applications and worse for getting hot (like in bed). Person is thirstless.
𝑅ℎ𝑢𝑠 𝑇𝑜𝑥 – rash is very itchy, and feels better from warmth. The person is very restless and can’t sit still, they may have fever with chills, and feel better from warmth and motion.
Prevention of measles with homeopathy, aka Homeoprophylaxis, is also possible. If you would like to discuss your personal situation, ask questions and come up with a plan, please make an appointment at www.homeopathbarbara.nz
1. https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360871899/measles-outbreak-one-case-auckland-grammar-school
2. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/111238229/people-have-forgotten--past-measles-epidemics-killed-hospitalised-hundreds
3. ESR Notifiable diseases annual surveillance summary 2019, https://www.phfscience.nz/digital-library/notifiable-diseases-annual-surveillance-summary-2019/.
4. https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/measles/
5. https://www.starship.org.nz/guidelines/measles/
Image credit: Dan the Librarian on Pixabay
EDITED TO ADD:
In case you don’t read the comments, here is some updated 2025 data about the incidence around the world.
Measles in the USA: the 2025 case fatality rate is 0.18%: 3 deaths in 1648 cases, https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html
It’s interesting to note the US data shows a much lower level of hospitalisation than here in New Zealand, only 12%, compared to 35% in our 2019 outbreak. I have many questions about why this is, and note the difference in the way healthcare is provided in the USA compared to NZ. Unfortunately the CDC does not provide further information about the deaths to better understand what happened.
However, this report from the last big outbreak in 2019 showed 1249 cases and zero deaths in the USA. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6840e2.htm
If we are looking at 2025 data, let’s also consider Canada, which up til October 18th has had 5,109 cases and only 2 deaths, an incidence of 0.039%, both of these babies who contracted measles in utero. https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/
In the UK, the 2025 case fatality rate is 0.061% (2 cases in 3268 cases)- however only one of those is from acute measles, the other is a death in an adult from late effect of measles (and no indication of age or other health issues in the adult). This puts the correct case fatality rate for the acute outbreak at 0.031%. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-historic-confirmed-cases-notifications-and-deaths/measles-historic-confirmed-cases-notifications-and-deaths -notifications-and-deaths-in-england-and-wales-1940-to-2025
Our closest neighbour, Australia, is also experiencing a higher number of cases this year, currently sitting at 146 cases, the highest in a year since 2019 when they had 284 cases. https://nindss.health.gov.au/pbi-dashboard/
In this report, they note that there were 4 deaths between 2020 and 2022. I added up all the cases from the above monitoring, and in those 22 years there were 2347 cases, which gives a case fatality rate of 0.043%.
https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/a4adb0e5-6f93-49b4-80ba-ba38989c35fa/aihw-phe-236_measles_2025.pdf
