Waterloo region reports 1st confirmed measles case in 6 years

CBC News

· Posted: Mar 21, 2025 3:19 PM EDT | Last Updated: 23 minutes ago

Public wellness officials successful Waterloo portion person confirmed a section lawsuit of measles for the archetypal clip since 2019. 

This comes arsenic Ontario saw a crisp summation successful measles cases this week. 

Thursday, Public Health Ontario reported 470 measles cases since an outbreak began successful October. That's an summation of 120 cases since March 14.

"Measles is highly contagious and spreads easy among those who are unvaccinated," Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, Region of Waterloo Public Health's aesculapian serviceman of health, said successful a merchandise connected Friday.

"Vaccination remains the astir effectual mode to bounds the dispersed and support yourself and your loved ones from superior illness," Wang said. 

Anyone who whitethorn person visited a aesculapian gathering astatine 51 Benton St. successful Kitchener connected Tuesday, March 18 from 4:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. should interaction their section nationalist wellness portion instantly if they autumn nether these 3 categories: 

• They are immunocompromised.
• They are pregnant.
• They are a kid oregon big calved oregon aft 1970 who is unvaccinated oregon has lone received 1 dose of measles vaccine.

Anyone surviving successful Waterloo portion tin telephone 519-575-4400 to scope a nationalist wellness official.

Region of Waterloo Public Health confirmed they are moving to find others who whitethorn person been exposed. 

Measles is 1 of the astir contagious diseases successful the world. The World Health Organization says the microorganism tin stay progressive successful the aerial oregon connected infected surfaces for up to 2 hours.

It usually begins with a fever, cough, runny chemoreceptor and reddish watery eyes, followed by a reddish blotchy rash that starts connected the look and spreads to the assemblage and limbs. The microorganism tin pb to pneumonia, inflammation of the encephalon and death.