Alberta ramping up measles immunization efforts amidst highest number of cases in decades

The province is ramping up its fight against measles with a new awareness campaign as the total cases passes 200. CTV News Edmonton's Nicole Weisberg reports.

The provincial government is ramping up efforts to get Albertans immunized against measles.

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According to the latest data, released Monday at noon, 265 cases of the highly contagious disease have been confirmed by Alberta Health.

Fifty-five cases were counted over the weekend.

About 80 per cent of all cases have been in the central and south health zones.

“Measles is spreading right here in Alberta. At this time, we are looking at the highest number of measles cases in the province in decades,” said Dr. Sunil Sookram, the province’s interim chief medical officer of health, during a news conference Monday morning.

“This is a disease we rarely see in Canada, or Alberta, for many years thanks to the high immunization rates. And I have to admit: I‘ve been practicing emergency medicine at the university hospital for 25 years and I‘ve never seen a measles case in my career. So up until now, we thought the disease had been eradicated – but things have changed.”

As of April 26, the majority of cases were unimmunized people.

According to Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, measles vaccinations between March 16 and April 20 were 67 per cent higher than the same time period last year. But 95 per cent of a population needs to be immunized to prevent spread of the disease, and some health zones in Alberta are varying amounts below that.

“In my zone, for example, we’re at 90 (per cent),” said Dr. Ifeoma Achebe, the central health zone’s medical officer. “And then in the northeast area of my zone where we’re seeing cases, we have about 72 per cent, which is not very ideal.”

Sookram said there are multiple reasons for this, including safety concerns, cultural beliefs, and misinformation.

So the government is adding daily immunization appointments at clinics near the hot spots and introduced a new early dose of measles-containing vaccine for infants six to 11 months old in the north, central and south zones.

LaGrange’s department is also working on a broader advertisement campaign consisting of radio, print and digital messaging in more than a dozen languages: “Don’t get measles. Get immunized.”

Sookram promised, “We’re not here to judge or pressure. We know immunization decisions can be deeply personal, but we’re here to support families with science-based information and to make sure people know where to go and what to do. The measles vaccine is safe. It’s effective – and we know this to be true because according to recent studies, it has saved the lives of over 154 million people in the last half century.”

As of Monday, HealthLink 811 will also host a dedicated measles hotline at 1-844-944-3434.

And, the government is working on a toolkit for child-care operators. LaGrange said her department would be in touch with the industry when it was ready.

Those who are unsure of their vaccine status can learn how to find their records on the Alberta government’s website.

Of the 210 cases confirmed as of Friday, 26 were considered active and transmittable to others.

As of Friday, no deaths have been attributed to measles, although three people, all under the age of 18, were in intensive care.

Although the officials on Monday used the term “local outbreaks,” the government is not declaring a provincial outbreak unless cases begin to climb in every health zone.

Edmonton exposure

Also on Monday, Alberta Health Services informed the public of a measles exposure at an Edmonton theatre.

Officials said anyone who attended the Cineplex Odeon South Edmonton Cinemas on 99 Street on April 26 between 8:30 p.m. and 1 a.m. may have been exposed and are at risk of becoming sick if they were born after 1970 and have fewer than two doses of vaccine.

They were advised to review their immunization records and monitor for symptoms like fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes, and a rash that develops three to seven days after a fever starts.

If symptoms do develop, they should stay at home and call 811.

‘We can still win this’: expert

The Alberta NDP on Monday slammed the United Conservative government for not taking action sooner.

“The measures announced today should have been in place months ago. Instead, this government ignored the problem. Now we have more than 200 people who have gotten needlessly sick, many of them children, and people are in intensive care with this terrible disease,” party leader Naheed Nenshi said in a statement.

According to microbiologist and infectious disease specialist Jason Tetro, the World Health Organization considers 50 cases the point at which a disease becomes almost impossible to stop.

“Better late than never,” he told CTV News Edmonton.

“What we need to do now is twofold: The first thing, we got to regain the trust with the public and public health, and secondly, we gotta start knocking out this virus before it really turns into an unstoppable and no longer eliminated virus.”

Getting to a 95-per cent vaccination level will likely take the summer, or perhaps the year, Tetro speculated.

“Think of it like a hockey game. We’ve just gone into overtime but instead of another team, it’s measles. We can still win this, but we gotta really dig hard and make sure that everybody’s playing their role.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg