Patients’ privacy may have been breached after the Southern Primary Health Organisation clinic in Invercargill was broken into.
Police are still investigating but Fairfax Media believes two laptops and two hard drives containing patient records were stolen.
One hard drive is believed to contain the patient files of students who underwent the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) immunisation programme during 2011 and 2012.
The programme was launched in 34 schools throughout Southland but Southern PHO chief executive Ian Macara would not confirm how many patients might be affected.
Consent forms containing patient names, addresses, medical records and vaccination dates were not encrypted, meaning they could be copied by anyone.
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