Lanaudière reporting 80 cases of measles across the region

A sharp increase in the number of measles cases in the Lanaudière region seemed to have health officials on the defensive Tuesday, as they refused to answer questions about the escalating outbreak until a news conference on Wednesday morning.

There are now 80 confirmed cases of measles across the region, which is northeast of Montreal. That’s up from 18 cases on Feb. 21, which were all people who hadn’t been vaccinated.

It all started from two families’ vacation at Disneyland in California, where they were exposed to the disease and brought it home to Lanaudière. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 173 people in the U. S. have been infected with measles since Jan. 1, 127 of them due to the outbreak at Disneyland.

Caroline Quach, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, said in an interview that in this particular secluded area of Lanaudière, apparently no one is vaccinated for religious and philosophical reasons, which explains the exponential rise in the number of cases there.

Measles is considered one of the most contagious diseases, Quach said. One person generally infects 16 others, which explains why the disease has been spreading so quickly through this community.

( Even with the vaccine, a small percentage of people can still contract the disease, she said.)

Last month, Premier Philippe Couillard urged parents to immunize their children out of a sense of responsibility, even if the government can’t legislate compulsory measles vaccinations.

Complications from measles can include pneumonia, deafness and death in about one or two cases for every 1,000 infected individuals.

Before the vaccination rates started slipping in recent years, measles was considered eradicated. Most people today don’t even remember what infectious diseases are, said Quach.

“But even healthy children can die from measles,” she said. And for people whose immune system is compromised or suppressed, it can be very risky.

Watching fear about the vaccination spread has been very frustrating, Quach said, as it is based on “fraud and not science.”

A debunked study said the vaccination could be linked to autism, but it was subsequently retracted.

In Canada, only Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick have legislation that mandates children be vaccinated in order to attend school. Quebec has voluntary inoculation, but is in the process of putting together a registry of immunization.

Quach said that would at least allow school officials to know which children are vaccinated or not, enabling them to keep children who aren’t vaccinated away in the event of an outbreak.

“At least that could help control outbreaks,” she said.