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Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said the province is seeing new measles cases daily.
As of Wednesday, there have been 37 confirmed cases between March 14 and May 14.
Shahab told media on Friday that 70 per cent of the cases are among preschool and school-aged children and were were unvaccinated in 95 per cent of cases.
Shahab said eight of the 10 new cases are in the central-west and central-east zones, meaning most of them were either travel-related or were through local transmission in the southern rural parts of Saskatchewan. Four of the 37 cases had resulted in hospitalization.
“The situation remains concerning but not, unfortunately, surprising,” he said.
“There is some good evidence that vaccine uptake in preschool, school-age and young adult populations who are unvaccinated or had not yet received both doses has increased over the last two months.”
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“This will obviously protect those individuals and families who were unvaccinated. However, many families are still not accepting vaccines, despite public health staff reaching out to them locally. This means that the measles outbreak will continue.”
Shahab said the resurgence of measles in Saskatchewan, Canada and North America generally is extremely unusual.
He said Canada eliminated local transmission of measles in 1998 and since then the only cases seen in the country were usually travel-related.
Shahab said in the past, those who got measles from other places would self-isolate and there would be a quick public investigation.
“Overall, we had a high vaccination rate,” he said. “And because in these situations — the household, the surrounding communities and families had a high vaccination rate — we would not see further transmission.”
Shahab said in the past 10 years, Saskatchewan would see either no measles cases or just one or two annually.
“Most of our travel-related cases now are not linked to far-off places, they’re linked to travel within Canada. For example, to other provinces like Alberta and travel to the U.S. and northern Mexico,” Shahab said.
Shahab said if unvaccinated people develop a fever, red eyes, runny nose it could be the start of a measles infection and people should isolate immediately.
He said those people also might discover a rash starting behind the ears and then spreading to the rest of their face and body.
Shahab said a high rate of vaccination is the only way to stop the outbreak.
He said infants less than a year old, unvaccinated pregnant women and immunocompromised people are at a higher risk for severe complications.
Shahab said one person infected had received two doses of the vaccine and two others had only received one dose.
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