Measles are back. How worried should we be?
Posted March 21, 2024 4:24 am.
In today’s The Big Story podcast, Canada has already seen more cases of measles in 2024 than in all of 2023. And rates of the disease in Europe and the United States are also rising. Meanwhile, vaccine uptake for the MMR shot, which protects against measles, has collapsed in recent years.
Dr. Raywat Deonandan is an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Health Sciences. “We do consider it a mild disease because it doesn’t cause death as commonly as it used to, at least, in wealthy countries, but it’s nothing to be shrugged off,” said Deonandan. “It’s a serious consideration, and can cause disability and all kinds of suffering.”
So how worried should we be about what is — for now — still just a handful of cases? Why have vaccine rates for a decades-old and proven vaccine fallen so quickly? What do you need to know about a disease that, just a few years ago, was all but eradicated in Canada?
You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify. You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.
