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In an age when a world of information is available at our fingertips, it's simply astounding how quickly we forget the lessons learned an age ago.
A little more than 90 years ago, Canada faced one of the worst measles epidemics in its history. The June 6, 1935 edition of The Brandon Sun stated that measles had swept over the city "and easily led in the communicable diseases for the year."
A number of cases had developed among children in one Brandon school "before we were aware of its presence" and from that time on, the infection was too widely spread for any preventive measures to halt its progress.
That year, Canada saw the highest recorded number of measles cases, with 83,127 nationally, denoting an incident rate of 767.6 for every 100,000 Canadians.
Slightly less than a decade earlier, headlines in the April 23, 1926 edition of the Sun were hopeful of a measles cure. "An anti-measles serum, developed by French scientists, promises to make possible the prevention and control of what is now the most serious acute disease in existence," the story read.
At the time, measles, along with diphtheria and scarlet fever, had been considered among the most serious acute diseases in the world. And while deaths due to diphtheria and scarlet fever over the previous 25 years had largely dropped off by 1926, mortality from measles had only dropped by 10 per cent.
"It is so prevalent that hardly anyone in any part of the world can hope to avoid it," wrote the Sun. "The figures adduced recently by the American Journal of Hygiene go to show that more than 90 per cent of urban populations in England, Canada and the United States contract measles at home at some period of their lives. In the whole of Europe, with the exception of Russia and the Balkans, measles caused 700,167 deaths in the 10 years from 1900 to 1910."
The article also stated that between 1901 and 1920, there had been more than 100,000 deaths from measles in the United States.
Interestingly, the highest number of measles-associated deaths ever reported in Canada was in 1926, with 892 fatalities. It would be nearly four decades later -- 1963 -- when the first measles vaccine was first authorized for use in Canada, and childhood immunization first became part of Canada's vaccination routine in the early 1970s.
In the years since the introduction of vaccinations, the number of measles cases has been drastically reduced. And while Canada officially achieved measles elimination status in 1998, there has only be one year when Canada had no confirmed cases of the disease, and that was 2021.
But since late 2024 and into 2025, the number of measles cases has skyrocketed. This year alone, there were a total of 4,776 confirmed cases of measles in Canada as of Oct. 25, and 361 probable cases, with Alberta and Ontario experiencing the largest outbreaks, followed by Manitoba.
As of Oct. 25 in this province, there were 240 confirmed and 15 probable cases, with the majority of them in the cities of Winkler, Portage la Prairie and Winnipeg.
The rise in anti-vaccination sentiment and vaccine hesitancy among Canadians is incredibly disturbing. We have a hugely effective MMR vaccine that not only fights off measles with a 97 per cent effective rate, it can also immunize against mumps and rubella. But of the 4,776 measles infections thus far, at least 4,523 -- 88 per cent -- were in unvaccinated individuals.
This current outbreak is precisely what public health officials have been fearing. As a result of the current outbreak, Canada is on the brink of losing its measles-elimination status.
As reported by the New York Times this week, the World Health Organization considers measles eliminated until it has spread unchecked for a year.
"Canada is set to be the first Western country since the coronavirus pandemic to lose its elimination status, according to W.H.O. data," the Times reported. "The (spectre) of Covid-19 hangs over this outbreak."
The growing distrust of public health officials has been exacerbated by the onslaught of social media misinformation and disinformation that is doing a major disservice to the youngest and oldest Canadians, who are most at risk from what remains a dangerous disease. So far this year, there have been two measles-related deaths in Canada -- we are lucky that number is not higher.
But in order to prevent the spread of measles, there needs to be a high public vaccination rate in a community of at least 95 per cent, so that very young children under six months of age and those individuals who cannot be vaccinated are protected.
While the province is making efforts to educate the public about the dangers of the disease and has attempted to bolster public immunity by urging parents to vaccinate their children, we may need to remind Manitobans just how lucky we are to have modern medicine and immunization research.
Let's not condemn our children to suffer needlessly because we have forgotten the lessons of history.