A MAN has died of measles and 50 people, mostly children, are suspected to have contracted the viral disease in the Transkei.

Provincial Health Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said a 25-year-old man in Tshezi village outside Mthatha died last Sunday after contracting the virus from a two-year-old Gauteng visitor.

One other confirmed case reported in the province was “a female doctor who was treating children infected by the virus at the Zithulele hospital”. She was being treated at a private hospital.

There were 50 suspected infections, “mostly children”, in seven villages. A team of 20 nurses, with 9000 vaccines, was dispatched to the area on Saturday. – Sapa