Health-care officials disappointed with measles re-emergence in Canada

On Monday, Canada lost its measles elimination status, which it had previously held since 1998.

It’s a development in Canada that has many health-care professionals disappointed.

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Dr. Joseph Blondeau, head of clinical microbiology at the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon joined the Evan Bray Show to discuss the re-emergence of measles in Canada.

Listen here for the full interview:

Blondeau said losing the elimination status is big, due to the fact that Canada has always been seen as a country with strong infrastructure, due to its health-care system.

“We have a universal health-care program which means that everybody in this country has access to that program, including for immunization,” he said. “What’s happening globally with measles and the outbreaks around the world. It’s a bit embarrassing for us in Canada that we have all this opportunity and yet we’ve allowed measles to creep back in.”

Blondeau said one can’t just snap their fingers and get elimination status back, it requires help and co-operation from the entire country.

“You need a large percentage of the population to be immunized in order to keep the virus from circulating amongst vulnerable individuals,” he said. “We really need to get our immunization status back to where it historically has been which prevents this virus from spreading in the population.”

Blondeau wants to remind people vaccines are designed to help the recipient, not harm them.

“These vaccines are safe and they’re efficacious,” he said. “They really do an important job of protecting you and your families and the population as a whole.”

Blondeau said it’s a telling statistic that most of the people infected with measles are not vaccinated.

“We do know that there is a segment of the population who have an anti-vax sentiment,” he said. “Some of these individuals are making decisions for both themselves and for their children.”

Blondeau believes the sort of disappearance of measles for such a long period of time left people questioning its severity.

“I think people are thinking ‘Well, we haven’t seen measles for whatever so I don’t have to worry about it anymore’,” he said. “I think that this is a very textbook case of what happens when we become complacent.”

He added it’s important that this issue is fixed as soon as possible.

“We need to correct that messaging and say that the reason why it’s not been a problem is because such a high percentage of the population were immunized,” Blondeau said. “If you’re not immunized you’re contributing to the problem.”

Blondeau said some people could have more severe reactions to the virus than others.

“The symptoms normally are high fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes, and a rash,” he said. “Some patients can go on to have more serious consequences, like swelling of the brain, encephalitis, you can have pneumonia and in some patients unfortunately you can even die.”

The concern with measles Blondeau said it can spread at a rapid rate.

“The virus actually has the ability to hang in the air for prolonged periods of time,” he said. “(The) measles virus is (one) of our most contagious viruses, one person might be expected to infect anywhere from 15 to 20 people.”

In comparison, Blondeau said the average person infected with COVID-19 was expected to infect up to three people.