The number of confirmed cases of measles in Alberta is soaring, from 193 confirmed cases on May 1 to 313 cases on May 8 — a period of just one week.
Nearly two-thirds of cases are in the southern part of the province, which includes Lethbridge, Taber and Medicine Hat.
And the real number of cases in Alberta is probably much higher, according to the province’s former chief medical health officer, Dr. James Talbot, during a virtual press conference on Thursday, organized by the Alberta Medical Association.
“Because it takes time for measles to infect someone, cause symptoms, develop the rash, and be reported after a lab test confirms it, numbers reported in Alberta are actually lagging behind the number of infections,” added Talbot.
An illness that was once considered eradicated in Canada is now showing signs of exponential growth, with Alberta quickly approaching the rate of spread in Ontario where another 197 cases over the last week brings the number of confirmed cases to 1,440.
101 patients in Ontario have been hospitalized, including 75 children and eight of those are intensive care.
“What we have seen at least for the last three weeks in the Alberta is a near doubling every week of the new cases — so we are still very much in an expansion phase and no sign of that slowing down at least the next several weeks,” said Dr. Craig Jenne, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Calgary.
The number of measles cases in Saskatchewan is also showing signs of explosive growth with that province’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, confirming a total of 27 confirmed infections as of Thursday — a jump of 15 cases in just the past week.
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“The age range is as low as five months – almost all cases, except one, are unvaccinated. We’ve had exposure to infants who are at higher risk and cannot be vaccinated because families and communities around them are unvaccinated and the vast majority of our cases are in children and school age adolescents — up to 78 per cent of them,” said Shahab.
“Two hospitalizations have been reported. So one in 20 people get hospitalized, one in five can get other complications requiring medical care. So we are already starting to see that,” added Shahab.
The percentage of children in Alberta who haven’t been immunized or only partially immunized is also very low, said Talbot.
“On average, the percentage of children under two who have received the recommended two doses of vaccine in Alberta is 68 per cent,” said Talbot.
“Those are the government’s own figures, and that is considerably below the 95 per cent target. It’s worse in the North, South, and Central with coverage rates of 50 per cent or less.”
Facing intense criticism for not doing enough to encourage Albertans to get themselves and their children immunized against measles, on Monday the province’s minister of health announced an expansion of immunization efforts with extended hours and walk-in availability at some clinics in the hardest-hit parts of the province.
The province also introduced a new early dose of measles vaccines for infants between six and 11 months — on top of the normal immunization schedule, which is two doses of the vaccine between the ages of 12 and 18 months.
It has also launched a new advertising campaign — in 14 languages — to promote vaccination.
“We’ve often relegated this disease in our culture to simply a childhood infection you deal with (but) the reality is we know that about one in 10 cases will require some form of hospitalization. That may not require admission, but you’ll present at a hospital,” said Jenne.
“About one in 1,000 or so, or maybe more, will require intensive care unit admission and intubation.
“Between one and three kids out of every 1,000 end up losing their lives to this virus.“
While measles is often considered a childhood disease, infectious disease specialist Dr. Lynora Saxinger said adults also need to make sure they are vaccinated, because not only could they infect others, it can have very serious complications.
“So most of the people who 55 years of age and younger grew up in a world where measles was decreasing very quickly, and many of those people had one dose of vaccine because that was the recommendation at the time. A lot of those are now at risk of getting measles and measles in adults can actually be quite significant,” said Saxinger. “This can be a fatal complication.
“It can be a very severe illness — it is not just a rash, it’s a whole body illness and people can get severe lung disease, they can get hepatitis, encephalitis and another big feature is that post-measles, people can have a period of relative immune deficiency,” added Saxinger.
“The final thing that I don’t know if we mentioned is that there’s a late complication of measles called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (a fatal brain disorder), which actually occurs seven to 10 years after getting measles, especially if measles was acquired by a young child.”
“If you get one to three deaths per thousand, every thousand cases, you’re continuing to pay the price,” said Talbot. “But it doesn’t end with the first thousand. That’s the bill that you pay for every thousand. And that’s why prevention is so important.”
More information on measles, including symptoms, vaccinations and daily updates on confirmed cases is available from Alberta Health, online at alberta.ca/measles.
Information on measles in Saskatchewan is also available online by clicking here.
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