Health officials confirm 119 measles cases in Quebec

Canadian public health officials said Wednesday that there are 119 confirmed cases of the measles in Lanaudière, Quebec (PDF), a town about 50 miles north of Montreal.

The first case of measles in the region was reported to Lanaudière’s public health agency on Feb. 10, according to the Toronto Sun newspaper, but the infection spread to people who hadn’t been vaccinated for the disease.

The spread of measles to Lanaudière is the result of visits by two families to the Disneyland resorts in California, where they were exposed and brought the measles back with them to Quebec, according to the Montreal Gazette newspaper. The infected children as well as classmates and staff who came into contact with them have been ordered to stay home for two weeks, the newspaper said.

Public health officials believe the Disneyland outbreak stemmed from measles infections brought to the resort from outside the U.S., which spread among unvaccinated visitors. Some 173 people in 17 U.S. states have caught the measles since Jan. 1, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

By Feb. 21, Lanaudière officials had confirmed 18 cases, the Gazette reported. The measles may have spread so fast because Lanaudière parents have particularly high rates of vaccine refusal based on religious and philosophical reasons, Montreal Children’s Hospital pediatric infectious diseases doctor Caroline Quach told the Gazette.

The Canadian provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick require children to be vaccinated in order to attend school, but Quebec only calls for voluntary vaccination, according to the Gazette. Quebec is now in the process of putting together school registries that track children’s immunizations, allowing them to know which kids should stay away from school in the case of an outbreak.

“At least that could help control outbreaks,” Quach told the Gazette.

Measles is a respiratory disease marked by a cough, runny nose and a rash. While the CDC credits widespread inoculation for the fact that measles has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000, a significant number of parents in some states, including California, Oregon and Vermont, have increasingly sought exemptions from vaccinating their children due to religious or personal beliefs.