Despite national mumps outbreak, N.S. doctors seeing more measles cases

Mumps outbreaks have public health officials across the country on alert, but here in Nova Scotia three recent incidents of mumps and seven measles cases appear to be under control.

This past weekend, suspected cases of mumps sidelined several Vancouver Canucks players. Ontario has seen a surge, as have the provinces of Alberta and Manitoba.

“We haven’t had much mumps over the past few years and so this is a bit unusual to have three cases over a period of a couple of months. It is higher than normal but it is not something that is considered a major concern,” said Dr. Trevor Arnason, medical officer of health for Halifax, the Eastern Shore and West Hants.

“It really is a reflection probably of some of the mumps cases that have cropped up in other places around the country…We believe that our three cases all link to Toronto.”

As of Monday afternoon, there were still only seven reported cases of measles, unchanged from last week. Arnason said Nova Scotia hadn’t seen a measles case since 2008 prior to this cluster.

“Some of them have traveled outside the Halifax area during their infectious period and so that’s why we’re notifying people across the province,” he said.

“There’s potential for cases to crop up outside, but for now all the cases have been linked to each other and all are in the Halifax-Dartmouth area.”

Arnason said measles cases always originate from outside the province, and they suspect the latest ones are related to clusters in the U.S.

“I think the message is basically we’ve been very successful with eliminating these diseases through vaccinations and we’re still going to see them from time because there are travelers to other places where they still exist commonly,” he said.

“We anticipate that we won’t have widespread outbreaks here because our immunization programs are robust.”