Alberta Health Services announced the province’s two newest cases of measles yesterday.
One Grande Prairie family is very worried about the possibility of the disease cropping up in Grande Prairie, and the risk it may pose to their daughter, and anyone else ineligible for vaccination.
Chloe Radbourne says her 5 year old daughter, who has a heart transplant, has to rely on the immunity of the people around her.
“We don’t have a confirmed case in Grande Prairie yet, but we know we’ve had exposures. With the really poor level of vaccinations in Grande Prairie right now, there’s potential that we have some confirmed cases, so it’s very scary for us.”
Over 3600 hundred people have been vaccinated in the North Zone since the beginning of May.
However, Radbourne says she is considering limiting her daughters exposure to the community while cases of the disease continue to appear.
“We’re trying to educate ourselves as best as possible to decide what we choose to do. So we have to decide, do we keep her out of her activities now? She’s in preschool, she does dance, do I pull her out of that, do I not take her out into the community at all? That’s what we’re trying to decide.”
There have been 30 confirmed cases of measles in Alberta so far. Only one of those is in the North Zone, and is believed to have been contained to Fort McMurray.