Worried about measles over March Break? Here's what Windsor's top doctor says
CBC
It's March Break, and plenty of families will be hitting the road or boarding a plane for a vacation. But health officials, including in Toronto, are warning parents about the highly-infectious virus ahead of the travel week.
Measles was once eradicated in Canada. But with COVID-19 shifting public health priorities for years, many health agencies, and parents, fell behind on getting kids their routine immunizations, said Dr. Mehdi Aloosh, the medical officer of health for the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit.
With some hesitant to get their vaccinations, public health units are gearing up for measles outbreaks.
Windsor's health unit warned in January about possible exposure in the community linked to international travel. While that case didn't spin off into any others in the community, Aloosh says next time Windsor-Essex might not be as lucky.
He urges families to think about a measles vaccine ahead of their March Break travel — and there's still time, he says.
Aloosh spoke with CBC Windsor News at 6 host Meg Roberts about the top things to know about measles ahead of March Break.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
What makes measles so dangerous?
Measles is not just an infection that has fever and rash. It sends children to a hospital. It can cause chronic neurological damage like deafness [and] blindness. Twenty per cent of children who get measles can go to a hospital as a result of pneumonia and other complications.
The worst case scenario, children can die from this disease and the rate is one to three in 1,000 kids. So that's a significant danger, for me.
Measles was declared eradicated in Canada in 1998. Why are we seeing this outbreak in cases?
Yeah it's actually a very interesting story because we eliminated the disease from Canada, which means that we hadn't had a case inside. Most of them were coming from outside of Canada and two years after us, the United States was able to eliminate the disease. But now as a result of COVID and lack of access elsewhere … kids haven't received the vaccination that they needed, so they are susceptible.
If we are not completely vaccinated we can contract the disease [outside Canada] and bring it back into Canada and spread among our community.
Our healthcare system here in Canada and elsewhere was very busy with COVID. So there were some missed opportunities there for kids to be vaccinated.
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