A medical health officer with the Saskatchewan Health Authority said her fingers are crossed that measles won’t enter the province.
“We hope that our higher immunization rate will prevent it from getting to Saskatchewan, but no one is immune. It’s a very contagious disease,” Tania Diener told reporters in Regina on Thursday.
Nine cases of the measles have been reported in Vancouver after an unvaccinated Canadian child contracted the disease on family trip to Vietnam.
In Washington state a public emergency has been declared as more than two dozen cases have been reported.
As of January, just over 90 per cent of Saskatchewan five-year-olds had received both doses of the measles vaccine, according to the health authority.
Measles symptoms start with a fever and rash and can lead to swelling of the brain and death.
A new Angus Reid survey shows 70 per cent of Canadians want vaccinations that prevent deadly diseases to be mandatory for all kids attending school. About 24 per cent of respondents said vaccinations should be a parent’s choice.
This week, doctors told CTV News Vancouver more teens in the city were going against their parents’ anti-vax opinions and getting their shots.
“With all this information in the news about the measles outbreak, it just became a bigger responsibility,” said Maddi Bisset, who got vaccinated at 23.
“My mom was very anti-vax. She was very into homeopathy. She was more into natural solutions.”
Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Health said the last time Saskatchewan had a measles outbreak was in 2014 – with 16 reported cases.
