TORONTO – Public Health Ontario says 173 more people have been infected with measles in the province over the past week, bringing the number of cases to 1,795 since the outbreak began last October.
“That’s 173 more cases than we want to see,” said Dr. Sarah Wilson, a public health physician at the agency.
Public Health Ontario’s weekly measles report, released Thursday, said the virus continues to spread primarily among people who have not been vaccinated.
Comments closedHealth officials say measles infected 197 more people in Ontario over the last week as the highly contagious disease emerged in new parts of the country.
That brings the province’s tally of probable and confirmed cases to 1,440 since an outbreak began in October.
Public Health Ontario’s measles report says there have been 101 hospitalizations, including 75 children. Eight patients have been in intensive care.
Nova Scotia and Northwest Territories each reported measles cases earlier this week, marking their first since this outbreak began.
Alberta reported yesterday that its overall case count had reached nearly 300 since mid-March, including three patients under the age of 18 in intensive care.
Saskatchewan updated its cumulative count to 27 cases today, a day after Manitoba reported it had reached 24 cases.
Measles has mostly infected unvaccinated children, infants and teenagers, with almost 500 cases in Ontario’s southwestern public health unit.
Comments closed✉️ Send letters to municipal councillors in Ottawa to voice your support for wastewater monitoring. Use our online tool to send emails.
Why take action? The funding for Ottawa’s wastewater monitoring program is currently set to expire in September 2025. Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in Ottawa. We need an early warning system to inform everyone about the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 subvariants, influenza, avian flu, RSV, mpox, and other viruses.
Comments closedOttawa has its first confirmed measles cases since 2019, part of the still-growing outbreak in many parts of the province.
Ontario has now reported 1,243 measles cases across 17 public health units, including 223 new cases in the week since its last update.
That includes new cases in Algoma Public Health in the Sault Ste. Marie area and Renfrew County’s health unit northwest of Ottawa.
Comments closedTORONTO – Public Health Ontario is reporting 95 new measles cases since last week, bringing the total number of people infected past 1,000.
It says a total of 1,020 people have had measles since the province’s outbreak began last October.
The agency says the ongoing rise in cases is “due to continued exposures and transmission among individuals who have not been immunized.”
Toronto, Ontario – [April 24, 2025] – In an urgent appeal to protect the health and safety of Ontario’s students, education workers, and families, Ontario School Safety (OSS) has issued an open letter asking the Ontario Provincial Government and Public Health Ontario for an immediate vaccine-PLUS strategy, which includes the essential role of healthy indoor air, to curtail the spread of measles. This critical request comes in the wake of concerning measles infection rates – as of April 17th, 2025, Public Health Ontario is reporting 925 measles cases in the province, more than five times the number of cases than the total number of cases over the last 12 years. Encouraging a vaccine-only strategy is insufficient due to barriers to access, and because measles spreads not only through direct contact with secretions or contaminated surfaces, but through the air we breathe.
Comments closedMore than 300 patients across four continents are at the centre of a Western long COVID study, which hopes to find an effective treatment for those who struggle with long COVID.
The study will look to trial two anti-inflammatory medicines as potential treatments, and hopes to bring into view people who struggle with the disease outside of North America.
“Despite the global prevalence of long COVID, patients report different symptoms and their presentation can be influenced by where they happen to live,” said Dr. Douglas Fraser, professor at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. “A study with global reach, tailored to examine each patient’s most severe symptoms, has the potential to bring hope to people well beyond Canada and the U.S.”
Comments closedThe measles outbreak that began in Quebec in December has officially ended, the Ministry of Health has confirmed. The situation is quite different in Ontario, which has recorded more than 900 cases.
The spread has stabilized in Quebec in recent weeks, with the last recorded case dating back to March 18. Quebec has confirmed 40 cases of measles during this outbreak, with the vast majority (32 cases) in the Laurentians.
According to the government’s technical parameters for the management of measles cases, contacts and outbreaks in Quebec, the end of the outbreak is set at the 32nd day following the last presence of the last contagious case in an environment.
Comments closedA made-in-Hamilton COVID vaccine that requires no needles is moving to the next stage of testing and researchers are looking for volunteers to take part.
The vaccine that is inhaled instead of injected will be studied by McMaster University researchers with $8 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Comments closedA major outbreak of measles has infected more than 800 people in Ontario. It’s the first outbreak of its size since the disease was declared eliminated in 1998.
Now, lower vaccination rates are leading to a serious outbreak in the province, enough to garner a travel advisory to the province from New York State south of the border.
Here’s what you need to know about measles — how it’s transmitted, how you can protect yourself, and whether you need to update your vaccinations.
Comments closedTORONTO – Ontario is reporting 155 new measles cases over the last week, pushing the province’s case count to 816 since an outbreak began in the fall.
The number of new cases has increased again after a few weeks of appearing to stabilize in the 100-per-week range, which public health physicians had taken as a sign of potential optimism.
Dr. Sarah Wilson, public health physician at Public Health Ontario, says the fact that Ontario has exceeded 800 cases is striking.
Comments closedStuffy, crowded classrooms mean kids are breathing in viruses and pollution. Parents are trying to make the air safer, but hitting roadblocks.
In September 2023, Heather Pun started sending her son to school with a carbon dioxide monitor. He was spending his days in a stuffy portable classroom, and she worried that COVID was being passed lung-to-lung through the stale air.
The device, which reads the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air, showed CO2 levels as high as 3,500 parts per million (ppm) in his classroom.
Comments closedAlthough COVID-19 no longer makes daily headlines, some are on a mission to spread awareness about the impact the virus is still having on the community.
The University of Waterloo hosted a silent walk on Thursday to raise awareness about the condition known as Long COVID – when the impact of an infection is still being experienced months after the fact.
Those who have or had Long COVID, and supporters of loved ones with it, were among those on hand.
Comments closedOttawa Public Health has begun monitoring wastewater for evidence of measles in the city as the highly infectious disease continues to surge throughout Ontario.
That makes Ottawa one of the only communities in the province and across Canada using wastewater as a possible early warning signal for measles. Ottawa Public Health says the tool is promising for detecting measles, but the research is limited and “many unknowns remain”.
There have been no cases in Ottawa so far this year but Dr. Gregory Rose, who is director of infection prevention and control at Queensway Carleton Hospital, warns that it is only a matter of time.
Comments closedAs Canada deals with its largest measles outbreak in more than a decade, health experts say a COVID-era tool could help tame the spread.
Wastewater surveillance, which involves testing sewage samples for viral pathogens, became essential during the pandemic. The data helped overwhelmed health officials map out COVID-19’s path and better predict the trajectory of cases.
At the time, it was praised as a critical public health tool that could serve as a warning system to keep Canadians safe from future harmful infections. And as the current measles outbreak surpasses 500 cases in Canada, experts say this is the moment where leaning into regional wastewater surveillance would be most helpful.
Comments closedThere’s been another sharp increase in Ontario measles cases as the province begins to release weekly reports on the infectious disease.
Public Health Ontario is reporting 470 measles cases since an outbreak began in October. That’s an increase of 120 cases since March 14.
The spread resulted in 34 hospitalizations, including two people who needed intensive care. Most of those hospitalized were unvaccinated kids, including one of the intensive care patients.
The outbreak expansion adds to the growing concern of rising measles cases in different parts of the country, including in Quebec where there are 40 cases and Alberta where there are 13, according to the latest data.
Comments closedDate: Saturday, March 15, 2025
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Where: Ottawa City Hall (meet at the entrance, Laurier Avenue side)
Join us for a walk on International Long COVID Awareness Day, Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 7 pm. The route is wheelchair-accessible.
Comments closedResearchers at McMaster University have started a phase-2 clinical trial on a next-generation, inhaled COVID-19 vaccine.
The AeroVax study, supported by $8M in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), will test needle-free vaccines developed to provide protection from SARS-CoV-2.
Led by Fiona Smaill and Zhou Xing, members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) at McMaster, the multi-centre trial will evaluate the new vaccine in a broad study group, while also confirming safety.
Comments closed
