Savea third All Black stricken by Mumps

Ardie Savea is the latest All Black to contract the Mumps viral infection, following Jack Goodhue and Rieko Ioane who also caught the disease.

Savea has been kept in isolation at their Cardiff hotel away from the rest of the touring party.

“He’s in his room and has been in isolation for a few days. He has been fully vaccinated previously as a kid, but clearly, he has got something. He’s recovering pretty quickly, so we’ve just kept him apart [from the team],” said assistant coach Ian Foster.

“Are we worried about it? No, we’re not. But have we taken every precaution? Yes, we have. Clearly Ardie must have been in fairly close proximity to Rieko at some point.

“If you look at time-lines that’s probably how it would work.”

Symptoms of the disease typically occur from 16 to 18 days after exposure and resolve after seven to 10 days.

“Clearly it’s caught us on the hop a little bit,” added Foster. “It’s not something you get a lot of, so it’s really come out of the blue. We’re really satisfied with the way doc’s (team doctor Tony Page) reacted really quickly with Rieko, and obviously Ardie was susceptible even though he’d done everything right in the past.

“It’s something we’ve taken really seriously, and I know Tony has done a great job of isolating it. But clearly Ardie has caught something.”