{"id":15551,"date":"2025-07-22T13:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T13:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/15551\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T13:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T13:59:08","slug":"alberta-mother-of-4-month-old-with-measles-calls-on-canadians-to-educate-themselves-about-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/15551\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta mother of 4-month-old with measles calls on Canadians to educate themselves about vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Four-month-old Kimie Fukuta-Birch of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., was diagnosed with measles.HO\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Months after fearing she would lose her baby girl to measles<\/a>, Morgan Birch says she wants Canadians to educate themselves more about the importance of vaccines.<\/p>\n

Birch\u2019s daughter, Kimie Fukuta-Birch, was too young to be eligible for the vaccine, which is not routinely given to children under a year old. But she feels her baby would not have been infected if more people around her had received the vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically as parents it\u2019s your responsibility to educate yourself with the help of your pediatrician and health-care professionals,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel this was completely preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birch, who lives in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., said she is also worried that her daughter may suffer long-term health complications as a result of her getting measles at such a young age.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just that parent or child who it affected when they don\u2019t vaccinate, there\u2019s a whole other population that needs to be protected by vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birch isn\u2019t certain where her daughter got infected, but said she took her out in the Fort Saskatchewan community before she got sick.<\/p>\n

Alberta has become a hot spot for measles, with the province reporting nearly 1,380 infections since the beginning of March. <\/p>\n

This is more than the total number of cases<\/a> reported in the United States.<\/p>\n

Measles resurgence exposes fault lines over vaccines and faith in Alberta town<\/a><\/p>\n

Ontario has also reported more than 2,270 infections since an outbreak began last fall.<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s immunization rates against measles for children fall below the recommended rate of 95 per cent that scientists say is needed to prevent the illness from spreading.<\/p>\n

The province\u2019s 2024 data shows that by age two, 80 per cent of children received one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, and 68 per cent received both doses. Alberta\u2019s vaccination schedule for the two-part shot calls for the first dose at 12 months and the second at 18 months.<\/p>\n

But even by age seven, only 71.6 per cent had received both doses, provincial data shows.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s not the only province with low immunization rates against measles among children. Three out of the four Atlantic provinces told The Canadian Press they also had immunization rates below the 95-per-cent threshold, while one province, Newfoundland and Labrador, has not responded to requests for its data.<\/p>\n

New Brunswick declares measles outbreak in south-central region<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, Dr. Kimberley Barker, regional medical officer of health for Sussex, N.B., said measles cases were rising due to factors such as vaccine hesitancy.<\/p>\n

In some cases, she said parents are too busy and may underestimate the seriousness or risk of infection.<\/p>\n

Barker said officials are ramping up immunization campaigns when schools start in September to make it easier for kids with busy parents to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n

Other provinces are also making it easier to get immunized through walk-in clinics, community health centres and health-care providers.<\/p>\n

Birch explained how the consequences could be severe for those who don\u2019t follow recommendations from their local public health officials and doctors.<\/p>\n

She recalled that before her daughter\u2019s bout of measles, she was a happy baby. <\/p>\n

But it took a month for Kimie to recover from the infection.<\/p>\n

And although she is now back to her \u201chappy self,\u201d Birch said she seems to be falling sick more than she used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer immune system has to be built up again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Canada has a total of 3,822 confirmed measles cases from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, as of July 5.<\/p>\n

New Brunswick has confirmed 14 cases.<\/p>\n

Opinions on measles vaccine differ in Southwestern Ontario after baby\u2019s death<\/a><\/p>\n

Shelly Bolotin, director of the Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases at the University of Toronto, said the first dose of the measles vaccine is usually given at 12 months. But children as young as six months can also be given the shot if they are travelling or living in an area with an outbreak.<\/p>\n

Although, she added those children who receive a dose at six months will still need to receive two subsequent doses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs people are going out of town and taking trips \u2013 if they are going to measles endemic areas \u2013 they can protect their infant if they\u2019re a minimum of six months old,\u201d Bolotin said, adding it takes up to two weeks for the vaccination to take effect.<\/p>\n

Bolotin said the incubation period for measles is up to three weeks from the time a person is exposed to the disease until they start experiencing symptoms.<\/p>\n

Measles infects the immune cells, erasing a lot of the previous immunity and leaving the person susceptible to other bacterial and viral infections for several years, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe technical term is measles immune amnesia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Children who recover from measles can experience other infections more frequently because they have lost this immunity and don\u2019t realize that this is a long-term effect of measles infection, she noted.<\/p>\n

There is also a rare and fatal form of neurological deterioration \u2013 subacute sclerosing panencephalitis \u2013 that happens in four to 11 in every 100,000 cases, she said. This disorder occurs when measles remains in the body latently, she added. Some of the symptoms include behavioural changes, cognitive decline, jerks, and seizures,with the onset of the disease being late childhood or adolescence. <\/p>\n

\u201cCanada worked very, very hard to eliminate measles, and we achieved measles elimination in 1998 which means the World Health Organization has recognized that it wasn\u2019t circulating regularly in our country, and now we\u2019re at risk of losing that,\u201d Bolotin said. \u201cAnd that would be a shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Anna Banerji, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, said some children suffer from complications after measles such as pneumonia, hepatitis or encephalitis. Measles can also cause deafness and blindness, especially if the child is malnourished.<\/p>\n

After recovering from a bout of infection, Banerji said some children have temporary low immunity. \u201cIt can take a while to recover,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Birch said she will carry the heartbreak, frustration and feeling of helplessness as she watched her four-month-old daughter fight measles.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe could have died,\u201d she said of her daughter. \u201cA lot of kids died from measles back before there were preventive measures in place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Four-month-old Kimie Fukuta-Birch of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., was diagnosed with measles.HO\/The Canadian Press…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,84,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-15551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-health","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}