Immunization campaign begins as case numbers top 210

By Lethbridge Herald on May 6, 2025.

Alexandra Noad
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

“Don’t get measles, get immunized” is the slogan for the new campaign from Alberta Health Services launching mid-May.

As of noon last Friday, there were 210 confirmed cases of measles in the province, with 26 of those still being communicable and three are in intensive care institutions.

In a news conference held on Monday, Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Health, reported that the vast majority of the cases are in the Central and South Zones (of which Lethbridge is a part) and 90 per cent of the cases were not immunized.

She added that 179 of the cases are impacting children under the age of 18.

In the same conference, Dr. Sunil Sookram, interim chief medical officer of health, was sympathetic to how personal the decision to get vaccinated can be.

“We’re not here to judge or pressure,” said Sookram. “We know immunization decisions can be deeply personal, but we are here to support families with science-based information and to make people know where to go and what to do.”

He added that the risk of getting measles is the highest it’s been in almost 30 years.

“Immunization is such an important part of our culture, our lifestyle, of growing up and unfortunately we got complacent I guess a bit. People forgot the importance of vaccination and it allowed these diseases to remerge.”

Dr. Ifeoma Achebe, medical officer of health of AHS for the Central Zone, says in order to have herd immunity, 95 per cent of the population needs to be vaccinated. The central zone isn’t there yet, with only 90 per cent being vaccinated.

To help those looking for information about their own measles vaccination records, looking to book measles immunizations or those dealing with symptoms, 811 Healthlink has introduced a measles hotline as of Monday. The hotline can be accessed by calling 1-844-944-3434.

In a statement to media following the news conference, NDP leader Naheed Nenshi was critical of the announcement, saying it should’ve happened much sooner.

“The measures announced today should have been in place months ago,” says Nenshi.

 “Instead, this government ignored the problem (and) now we have more than 200 people who have gotten needlessly sick, many of them children and people are in intensive care with this terrible disease.”

LaGrange, Nenshi, Sookram and Achebe all stressed the importance of getting vaccinated to stop the spread of measles.