World Supremacy Battlegrounds (WSB) founder Marco Selorio has issued an official statement regarding the measles infection in Sydney last month.
“We were first contacted by the Auckland Regional Public Health Service on December 30 and informed us that a New Zealand dancer contracted measles. The following day, the Australian Department of Health alerted us that another dancer from South Australia was also infected.
It was the first time that this has happened in nine years of competition, and once we were notified, we immediately contacted all Australian and international dance teams that competed in World Supremacy Battlegrounds and disseminated the information given to us by the respective health boards.
Our WSB management sent a public notice via social media (Facebook and Twitter) on January 1 to alert the dance community. This was soon followed by a corresponding email to all participating teams. The message is clear – if faced with symptoms that they should go see a doctor immediately as per advice from the respective Health Boards. We understand that the incubation period for measles is 10-18 days. Our events management team was also notified to check if anyone suffered any symptoms.
After further investigation, we have since discovered the source of the disease. An adult male dance competitor from the Philippines was infected by measles. According to their team manager, he showed flu-like symptoms on the day of international competition on December 8, but continued to dance after he received cold and flu tablets. He was bed-ridden for a few days after the event.
He did not know that he had measles until the rashes appeared. His rashes did not show until he returned to the Philippines on 11th December. He was soon confined to hospital and isolated for two weeks until he was healed.
It is an unfortunate incident that the spread of measles could not be prevented. Had we known earlier that the competitor or any of our dancers contracted the illness, we would have prevented them from entering the competition premises.”