A measles outbreak that has infected scores of unvaccinated children in southwestern Ontario reportedly had its start at a Mennonite religious gathering in New Brunswick last year.
In a March 7 letter to Ontario’s health units, the province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said there was “an exposure at a large gathering with guests from Mennonite communities in New Brunswick last fall.”
Guests at that gathering unwittingly brought the virus back to southwestern Ontario, mainly the region bordering Norfolk, Oxford and Elgin counties, which has a sizeable conservative Mennonite population.
Measles cases then emerged in Manitoba when Mennonites from that province returned home after visiting family in Ontario, Moore said.
Health officials previously said measles entered Canada on Oct. 16 of last year when an infected traveller flew to New Brunswick from the Philippines, with stops in Vancouver and Toronto. But how the highly contagious respiratory virus got to southwestern Ontario had been unclear prior to Moore’s memorandum.
The latest report from Public Health Ontario, released on Thursday, says Southwestern Public Health has seen 223 confirmed measles cases since last October, with another 111 cases in Grand Erie.
Taken together, those outbreaks account for almost three-quarters of Ontario’s confirmed cases, nearly all of which are in unvaccinated residents, Moore said.
Health officials in West Texas grappling with a deadly measles outbreak in that state have blamed low vaccination rates in Mennonite communities for the spread of the disease. But authorities in Grand Erie and Southwestern have refrained from publicly identifying vaccine hesitancy among the area’s conservative Mennonite population as a reason for the local spike in cases.
However, a list of measles exposure sites in Grand Erie includes a church and several private Christian schools in western Norfolk County catering to Old Colony Mennonites, and Moore’s letter confirmed the link.
“Cases could spread in any unvaccinated community or population but are disproportionately affecting some Mennonite, Amish, and other Anabaptist communities due to a combination of under-immunization and exposure to measles in certain areas,” Moore wrote.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders of Mennonite Church Canada advised its members there was nothing in the Bible or church teachings that justified a religious exemption from the vaccine.
A spokesperson for Mennonite Church Canada’s eastern chapter — which includes Ontario and New Brunswick — told The Spectator that Old Colony Mennonites are “not a part of our denomination.”
She did not respond when asked about her organization’s current message to members regarding the measles vaccine.
In an earlier interview, a Mennonite pastor in Simcoe — whose church is not connected with the current outbreak — told The Spectator she encourages members of her church who are unsure about vaccination to get health advice from medical experts.
Health officials agree the best way to avoid catching the measles is for residents born after 1970 to get two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
The vaccine is usually given just after a child’s first birthday and again between ages four and six. However, babies in Southwestern and Grand Erie can now get a first dose between the ages of six and 11 months, and the dose normally given when a child starts school can be given as soon as four weeks after the first-birthday dose.
“The provincial vaccine supply is being monitored and additional doses of vaccines are being ordered as needed,” Moore told Ontario’s medical officers.
Measles cases have popped up in 11 health units and the city of Hamilton so far this year, with Southwestern’s medical officer of health, Dr. Ninh Tran, telling reporters many of those cases are linked to the outbreak in his region and Grand Erie.
While most people who catch the measles will recover at home, the virus can destroy a patient’s immune system and in severe cases cause brain damage and deafness.
A child died of measles in Hamilton last year.