Alberta mother feared the worst for 4-month-old with measles
Morgan Birch worries about lingering impacts to her daughter's health
Months after fearing she would lose her baby girl to measles, Morgan Birch says she wants Canadians to educate themselves more about the importance of vaccines.
Birch's daughter, Kimie Fukuta-Birch, was too young to be eligible for the vaccine, which is not routinely given to children under a year old. But she feels her baby would not have been infected if more people around her had received the vaccine.
"Basically as parents, it's your responsibility to educate yourself with the help of your pediatrician and health-care professionals," she said. "I feel this was completely preventable."
Birch, who lives in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., said she is also worried that her daughter may suffer long-term health complications as a result of her getting measles at such a young age.
"It's not just that parent or child who it affected when they don't vaccinate, there's a whole other population that needs to be protected by vaccines."
Birch isn't certain where her daughter got infected, but said she took her out in the Fort Saskatchewan community before she got sick.
Alberta has become a hot spot for measles, with the province reporting nearly 1,380 infections since the beginning of March. This is more than the total number of cases reported in the United States.
Ontario has also reported more than 2,270 infections since an outbreak began last fall.
Alberta's immunization rates against measles for children fall below the recommended rate of 95 per cent that scientists say is needed to prevent the illness from spreading.
The province's 2024 data shows that by age two, 80 per cent of children received one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, and 68 per cent received both doses. Alberta's vaccination schedule for the two-part shot calls for the first dose at 12 months and the second at 18 months.
But even by age seven, only 71.6 per cent had received both doses, provincial data shows.
However, it's not the only province with low immunization rates against measles among children. Three out of the four Atlantic provinces told The Canadian Press they also had immunization rates below the 95-per-cent threshold, while one province, Newfoundland and Labrador, has not responded to requests for its data.
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Last week, Dr. Kimberley Barker, regional medical officer of health for Sussex, N.B., said measles cases were rising due to factors such as vaccine hesitancy.
In some cases, she said parents are too busy and may underestimate the seriousness or risk of infection.
Barker said officials are ramping up immunization campaigns when schools start in September to make it easier for kids with busy parents to get vaccinated.
Other provinces are also making it easier to get immunized through walk-in clinics, community health centres and health-care providers.
Birch explained how the consequences could be severe for those who don't follow recommendations from their local public health officials and doctors.
She recalled that before her daughter's bout of measles, she was a happy baby.
But it took a month for Kimie to recover from the infection.
And although she is now back to her "happy self," Birch said she seems to be falling sick more than she used to.
"Her immune system has to be built up again."
Overall, Canada has a total of 3,822 confirmed measles cases from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, as of July 5.
New Brunswick has confirmed 14 cases.
Lingering risks
Shelly Bolotin, director of the Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases at the University of Toronto, said the first does of the measles vaccine is usually given at 12 months. But children as young as six months can also be given the shot if they are travelling or living in an area with an outbreak.
Although, she added those children who receive a dose at six months will still need to receive two subsequent doses.
"As people are going out of town and taking trips — if they are going to measles endemic areas — they can protect their infant if they're a minimum of six months old," Bolotin said, adding it takes up to two weeks for the vaccination to take effect.
Bolotin said the incubation period for measles is up to three weeks from the time a person is exposed to the disease until they start experiencing symptoms.
Measles infects the immune cells, erasing a lot of the previous immunity and leaving the person susceptible to other bacterial and viral infections for several years, she said.
"The technical term is measles immune amnesia."
Children who recover from measles can experience other infections more frequently because they have lost this immunity and don't realize that this is a long-term effect of measles infection, she noted.
There is also a rare and fatal form of neurological deterioration — subacute sclerosing panencephalitis — that happens in four to 11 in every 100,000 cases, she said.
This disorder occurs when measles remains in the body latently, she added. Some of the symptoms include behavioural changes, cognitive decline, jerks, and seizures,with the onset of the disease being late childhood or adolescence.
Childhood complications
"Canada worked very, very hard to eliminate measles, and we achieved measles elimination in 1998 which means the World Health Organization has recognized that it wasn't circulating regularly in our country, and now we're at risk of losing that," Bolotin said. "And that would be a shame."
Dr. Anna Banerji, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, said some children suffer from complications after measles such as pneumonia, hepatitis or encephalitis. Measles can also cause deafness and blindness, especially if the child is malnourished.
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After recovering from a bout of infection, Banerji said some children have temporary low immunity. "It can take a while to recover," she said.
Meanwhile, Birch said she will carry the heartbreak, frustration and feeling of helplessness as she watched her four-month-old daughter fight measles.
"She could have died," she said of her daughter. "A lot of kids died from measles back before there were preventive measures in place."
