Accelerated measles vaccine schedule recommended as cases spread locally

Local health units are working to get kids up to date on their measles vaccinations as cases rise. CTV London’s Bryan Bicknell has more.

The Middlesex London Health Unit wants families to get young children vaccinated for measles sooner, and more often.

It’s recommending a new accelerated vaccine schedule, which comes as measles cases spread throughout the region, particularly to the south of London.

“As case counts increase across the region, we’re taking a coordinated approach with this,” said MLHU Associate Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Joanne Kearon.

MLHU said babies aged six to 12 months should receive one dose of the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine, but two additional doses are still required after the child is one year old.

Children aged one to four who have received their first dose are encouraged to receive a second dose within four weeks of the first dose.

Adults born in 1970 or later are recommended to receive a second dose.

“The majority of our cases are within closed clusters among unvaccinated communities. So, we’re not seeing a lot of community transmission. However, we are having community exposures,” said Dr. Kearon.

“And so, we want to give people that option to get their dose earlier and have that confidence when taking their child out in the community.”

According to Public Health Ontario, there have been 1,440 confirmed and probable measles cases across the province since mid-October, including 197 in the last week. Most of those infections have been in southwestern Ontario, and nearly 77 per cent were in infants, children, and adolescents. 94 per cent of the cases were in unvaccinated individuals.

As of Thursday, the MLHU is reporting 43 confirmed cases, with 79 per cent of those in children.

Southwestern Public Health, which includes the cities of St. Thomas and Woodstock, along with Oxford and Elgin counties, reports a total of 524 measles cases since last October, including 73 new cases in the last week.

“The majority of these new cases are part of the same group of cases we began investigating last week and are linked to one another,” explained Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Ninh Tran in a media briefing Thursday.

“A few other points I want to highlight. Our trends are very similar. Cases continue to mostly affect unvaccinated school age children, which really underscores how effective this vaccine is.”

The Southwestern Public Health catchment area continues to have the highest measles case count in the province.