The provincial Health Department's "poor handling" of the measles outbreak will top the agenda when the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) meets Health MEC Theuns Botha on Friday.

The TAC was set to meet Botha for talks on poor service delivery at clinics, filling of vacant posts at primary healthcare level, and the department's poor communication to community structures.

This follows last week's protest at Botha's offices in Dorp Street where the group demanded a meeting with the Health MEC after his alleged failure to respond their earlier correspondence with him.

Khayelitsha district co-ordinator of the TAC Mandla Majola said the campaign was "alarmed" by the latest revelation of seven measles-related deaths in the province.

He criticised the department's "poor communication strategy". He said many community health activists and NGOs remained in the dark about the latest outbreak.

He said they had learned about the outbreak and the deaths through the media.

"We are disappointed by the poor communication shown by the department especially concerning measles," Majola said.

"We were neither informed about the outbreak nor the deaths. There's been a lot of secrecy, and we feel that this impacts negatively on health care because many people don't know the seriousness of the outbreak.

"The little information that we have also means that we are unable to help with the awareness campaign because no information is forthcoming," said Majola.

"We feel that this is inappropriate and we will be raising the issue at our meeting with the Health MEC," he said.

The deaths have prompted Botha to call for a review of the vaccination programme.

At least 671 children in the province had contracted measles since the outbreak in September last year.

Botha said his department would "look deep into the programme and review it to see where do we get things wrong... and what actually caused the outbreak".

The Cape Argus, based on information given it by the department, reported last week that seven children had died of measles in February.

However this week, department spokeswoman Faiza Steyn denied that the seven children died in February, saying the fatalities stretched back to November.

ANC spokeswoman on health Joyce Witbooi blamed the department for not doing enough to publicise the outbreak, saying the uncertainty had caused panic across the province.

"The department's quietness over the issue is disconcerting. There needs to be a plan of involving communities. At the moment I'm not aware of any open communication to these communities. The department needs to explain what is happening.

"Currently people are panicking. The measles campaign won't get community buy-in unless the department is willing to go out and use the right channels of communication, and this can't only be done through the press.

"They have to engage with people," she said.

On Monday a joint anti-measles campaign by both the city and the province was launched at clinics and community health centres.

The city's head of health Ivan Bromfield said the campaign, which would run until March 23, was targeted at children aged between six months and two years as this group was considered to be the most vulnerable.

"We will be focusing on those health sub-districts that have recorded the most measles notifications... Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha and the Klipfontein and Eastern sub-districts."

Children in the targeted age groups would be immunised at all primary health care facilities and crèches in the sub-districts, Bromfield said.