The Western Cape Department of Health has set up isolation wards to deal with a measles outbreak that has affected more than 500 children in the province over the past few months.

It has also officially declared a measles outbreak in the province.

On Thursday the department said that as a result of an increased number of confirmed measles cases, children's health services across the province were operating under "significant pressure" to curtail the disease, which commonly affects young children.

The department spokeswoman, Faiza Steyn, said an isolation ward to accommodate children requiring hospitalisation for more complicated measles cases had been established at New Somerset Hospital.

A similar ward was to be opened at Tygerberg on Friday.

"The countrywide spread of measles has now been officially declared an outbreak in the Western Cape.

"As at February 22, 2010, 422 confirmed measles cases were reported in the Western Cape, with an additional number of serologically unconfirmed cases," the department reported.

However, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases there were at least 517 people infected with measles in the province, including the 70 newly-confirmed cases.

In its efforts to contain the virus the department said it had implemented an action plan, which was led by a joint operations committee that included clinicians, managers of both tertiary and secondary health services as well as the City of Cape Town's health services.

The committee, led by a senior executive member of the department's management team and head of Red Cross Children's Hospital, Dr Demitry Erasmus, would monitor the current situation to limit any further spread of measles

Steyn said the department had instituted a targeted immunisation plan to limit a further spread of measles in hot spot areas like Khayelitsha, Mitchell's Plain and the Drakenstein region.

She said this meant that every child presenting at public health care centres would be routinely immunised against measles irrespective of whether they had been vaccinated before.

Western Cape Health MEC Theuns Botha said health workers were "ready to deal with the outbreak".

"It is exactly for this reason that the Western Cape initiated the targeted immunisation campaign rather than waiting on the national immunisation campaign in April. We are ready to manage this measles outbreak.

"It is subsequent to pressure from this provincial government that the national Department of Health agreed to make the measles vaccine available to the Western Cape Department of Health so that we are now in a position to roll out the accelerated measles immunisation campaign now while also participating in the national mass immunisation campaign scheduled for April," he said.

However the chairwoman of Cape Metro Health Forum, Damaries Fritz, said the immunisation campaign was still not visible on the ground.

"The department has been telling the media that it has fast-forwarded the campaign, but we don't know where exactly is this being rolled out.

"The fact of the matter is that the immunisation campaign is either not happening or those on the ground don't see it," said Fritz.

He welcomed the opening of the new isolation wards, saying the idea was "ideal as long as those wards are properly staffed".

The provincial health department also came under fire from the national government early this month for failing to inform communities about the outbreak.

The province said it had withheld the information to prevent "unnecessary panic".