'Discouraging': Ontario measles outbreak rises to 572 cases, putting parents and educators on alert

National Post ^ | 03/30/2025 | Hanna Alberga

[SeekAndFind]

More measles cases have been reported in Ontario over the last week than the total number of cases recorded in the decade between 2013 and 2023

A mother of an infant, a principal of a religious school, and a public health physician — they all share the desire to get kids vaccinated against measles as Ontario recorded another 102 cases over the past week.

Public Health Ontario said Thursday there have been 572 cases since the outbreak began in October, 453 of them confirmed and 119 probable. Of the 42 people requiring hospitalization, two have required intensive care, and 36 have been children — most of them unvaccinated.

Article content The highly infectious disease is still predominantly impacting unvaccinated infants, kids and teenagers, most in Southwestern and Grand Erie public health units.

That worries Rosemary Tamburini, whose nine-month-old baby is just a few months shy of his first measles shot.

She doesn’t want to wait to vaccinate her child any longer, and is considering early immunization.

“I don’t think I’m alone in that. I’ve had discussions with several moms in Ontario who are in a similar situation looking to potentially get vaccinated early,” said Tamburini, who lives in Toronto’s west-end suburb, Etobicoke.

The measles vaccine typically starts for babies at one-year-old, but Ontario public health units have made it available to babies as young as six months in response to the outbreak.

New measles cases have appeared in Waterloo, in the western edge of the Greater Toronto Area, and Lambton County in southwestern Ontario. Just south in Chatham-Kent, cases nearly doubled to 39 in the past week, and the spread continues northeast in Huron Perth where 55 people have been sickened.

[gleeaikin]

My partner got Shingles years ago when he threw his lysine/arginine amino acid ratio out of wack by an odd diet change. I had him take a lot of lysine and he got better quick. More recently I had a Shingles attack but with the lysine the symptoms were relatively mild.

[Aeneas2112]

My dad had two Purple Hearts, one for having part of his face shot off.

He said shingles hurt more.