Quebec embarks on massive measles vaccination campaign

The measles virus is passed through airborne droplets and direct personal contact. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE U.S. CENTRES FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION)

(updated 11:40 a.m.)

Quebec has started a province-wide campaign to vaccinate or re-vaccinate all students against measles.

“Let’s stop the transmission…action is required!” reads a Quebec health department brochure about the province-wide measles vaccination campaign now underway.

Public health officials announced the massive vaccination effort at the end of October.

Its objective is to vaccinate all students and school staff members who have not received the required doses of vaccine or have no proof of vaccination.

The Quebec public health officials say anyone born before 1970 is considered to be protected against measles.

The campaign has already kicked off in southern Quebec schools.

Vaccination is being offered to students, staff and other workers in elementary and secondary schools who have not received the required doses of vaccine or have no proof of vaccination.

This campaign will also target Nunavimmiut, Serge Déry, Nunavik’s director of public health, said Nov. 17.

Previous requests for information to the Nunavik Regional Board of Health about whether Nunavik will be included in the measles vaccination campaign had gone unanswered, although Nov.16 the health board said it was vaccinating against flu and rotavirus.

The Nunavik vaccination campaign is an “adapted version” of the one now underway in southern Quebec, Déry said. That’s due to the higher percentage of people in Nunavik who have already been vaccinated and the lack of any measles cases related to the current outbreak.

Measles is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus and transmitted through direct personal contact with an infected person and by airborne droplets. Symptoms of the measles include a fever of 38.3 C or higher, cough, runny nose and red eyes.

After seven days of fever, a giant, blotchy rash starts to appear behind the infected person’s ears and face before spreading to the rest of the body.

The disease lasts from one to two weeks, and at least one person in 10 has to be hospitalized.

Measles can also lead to serious complications, such as an infection of the lungs or brain.

Infected people are contagious for four days before and four days after the appearance of the rash, warns information recently distributed by Quebec health authorities.

In 1952, a measles epidemic in northern Quebec killed 10 per cent of the population in many camps.

In 1989, during the last outbreak of measles in Quebec, more than 10,000 cases were reported. Most of those affected were children of school age. There were 656 hospitalizations, 10 people contracted encephalitis, which causes swelling of the brain, and seven died, according to a brochure circulated in Quebec schools to promote the measles vaccination campaign.

While usually Quebec sees only one or two cases a year, in 2011 there have already been more than 760 reported cases, most of them from the regions between Montreal and Quebec.

It’s the largest outbreak in North America and South America since 2002, when the Americas were declared “measle-free.”

The new measles outbreak appears to result from not enough people having been properly vaccinated. Those affected by the current measles outbreak are mainly children and teenagers between the ages of five and 19.

Most of those who caught measles were not vaccinated, or had not received all their doses of vaccine. Some had missed the recommended second dose of the vaccine, while others — between one and three per cent of the population — never received any vaccination shot at all.

There’s also some suspicion that the vaccinations have not been as effective as they were supposed to be.

That’s because about 14 per cent of the recent cases in Quebec occurred in fully-vaccinated people.

In Quebec, babies usually get their first shot against measles at a year and the second dose six months later, while in the United States kids get a second dose when they hit school, which may offer them better protection against measles right through high school.

The combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is the only measles vaccine available in Quebec.

Those who receive this vaccine are protected against all three diseases and their complications. If you’re already protected against these three diseases, receiving the vaccine again carries no risk, Quebec says.

Kids under 13 need permission from their guardians for the vaccination. But teens over 14 can decide for themselves if they want to be vaccinated.

However, during an outbreak, depending on how the measles outbreak develops, to protect the health of children and those around them, “an unvaccinated person could be removed from school until the end of the outbreak,” cautions Quebec’s health department.

Quebec’s current outbreak also has public health authorities in other jurisdictions in Canada on alert: on Nov. 16 the Alberta Health Services advised that more than 1,000 people in Edmonton to go to their doctors, because they had been exposed to someone with measles.