The Current - Inside a community where measles is spreading

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

A Mennonite community at the centre of Ontario’s measles outbreak, one woman says she trusts remedies made from dandelions and strawberries more than modern medicine. The Current’s James Chaarani went there to speak with community members, and found a deep distrust of vaccines and the medicine system.

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eliminated in Canada in 1998, but now measles are spreading across this country at an alarming rate. It was time to be getting his vaccinations and then seeing that there's been measles cases in the area we just wanted to get it done for him. That's one worried mom in southwestern Ontario who got her son vaccinated against measles recently. At least seven provinces have measles cases but the worst outbreaks are in Alberta and Ontario with more than 1,400 cases reported in Ontario alone since October.

Last month, the state of New York issued a travel advisory for people coming to Ontario warning that measles is only a car ride away. Dr. Kieran Moore is Ontario's chief medical officer of health. He says it's been a challenge getting vaccination rates up. It's not been easy because people are busy. They have many priorities, but I hope we can raise the awareness, have immunization be prioritized. It's a global phenomenon right now.

So anytime you're traveling outside of Canada, the risk is there and we want to make sure we don't bring measles back. And we want to ensure that we can get this under control in the Southwest of Ontario. The measles cases in Ontario are concentrated in the southwest part of that province, in the Mennonite community where vaccination rates are low. The current's James Shirani took a trip through the region to talk to people in the

community about this outbreak. He's with me in studio. James, good morning. Hey Matt, good morning. So describe where you went. Yeah, so I drove nearly 200 kilometres southwest of Toronto towards a town called Aylmer. A good part of the trip was through country roads, past forests and farm fields, some with Mennonites in traditional garb working the land. Yeah, there were tractors driving down

the road. There were signs warning to watch out for horse and buggies. This is really getting into the heart of Mennonite country and it's ground zero of the measles outbreak in Ontario. So when you were in that community, who did you talk to? Yeah, just to visualize a bit, Aylmer is a pretty tiny place. There's less than 8,000 people there.

There's shops and restaurants that kind of pop up out of nowhere along the country roads. And I stopped at this one place called Menomex, a Mexican Mennonite grocer and restaurant. And yeah, I actually didn't realize this, but there are some Mennonites from Mexico in the area and there's a bit of a presence there as you're driving around.

And I spoke to this one woman, Nancy Teason, who was working the counter there. It turns out that she's actually been affected by the outbreak. Her granddaughter is unvaccinated and recently had measles. Yeah, she had it for, I think about two weeks and she looked kind of rough. They went to the hospital to check it out, just to see if they did the right thing and they tell them they did, they did the right thing. So I think just took a couple of couple of weeks until she was over it. But then she was fine.

Yeah, it was a bit scary. Yeah. And are there other grandkids in the family? Yeah, we have more grandkids. And is there anything like are you worried about, you know, the other grandkids and are they vaccinated at all? No, they're not vaccinated. I'm not really worried about it. Just knowing that it is sort of a hotspot for measles. Does that make you feel any way

one way or another? I don't think so because, you know, I come from Mexico and I know that when I was a child, there were measles. I'm personally, I'm not scared. That's not an uncommon sentiment there. Vaccination rates are low in the community, but I spoke to experts on Mennonite theology and they said that there really is nothing in the religion itself that bans vaccination. This is more about a high level of distrust of the medical system and of the government.

Pete So, when you were there, how open were people in talking to you and speaking about what's going on there? Pete Yeah, I did want to talk to more people about this, but it wasn't always easy. Some were pretty forthcoming, as you heard with Nancy, but others seem pretty wary of me. A pastor at a religious school in Elmer, which has reportedly closed down because of worries around measles, was supposed to talk to me, but he cancelled that morning. And a Mennonite woman at another Mexican Mennonite shop started telling me about a measles case in her family, but she abruptly stopped talking and walked away. So there were some people though who were willing to talk to you, right?

Pete Yeah. So, across the street from the shop, there were these two women in bonnets who were standing outside of their home and I kind of approached them and they waved me to come and you know, they were very inviting and were very happy to talk, but they weren't comfortable using their names. And I asked one of them what they thought about the measles outbreak. I don't bother to feel about it. It's normal. It's real. It's, it's, it's a cruel human nature. It's the way life is supposed to revolve. It's the, it's the way we grew up. It's just the way it's supposed to be. You speak German?

I know among some German people, there's a distrust in the government, distrust in like vaccines. Is that how you feel or? Oh, believe me, that's an English speaking one too. Right. Distrust in the government, howdy. And so when it comes to things like,

you know, vaccinations, are people around here, are they feeling like that's something that they should do in light of the measles? No, they know better. There's nothing good in those vaccines these days. Once upon a time, before I was thought of, maybe there was some protection agent in them. Nothing in there is going to do you any good at all. What else do you learn from her about what she thinks of the healthcare system? I mean, you get a sense from that. Yeah, I mean, she was very suspicious, as you heard, of modern medicine. We were standing

by the small garden, and I was really curious about how she deals with illness in light of what she said. When it comes to health, like when it comes to accessing health, if you got sick, what do you, like how does, what does that look like? We pick those yellow things and the purple things. They do more for us than anything ever could. What are these yellow things? And I know dandelions, but I don't know the purple things. Violets. Okay, and so violet, the violet, you actually... Beautiful medicine. Oh gosh, yeah. And this one here, it's a strawberry. You can use the leaves as well. Okay? See there, that one's blooming,

that's strawberry. So you feel that it's better to go for more natural... Absolutely not better. It is the best. Right. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Do you have kids and grandkids? No. No? And do you have nieces or nephews or anything? Oh yeah. And in terms of vaccinations for them, is that? Not a requirement.

Just the same as for us. There's more dirt in there than there is of any well-being. And grandma grew up without them, and so can we. Yeah, and I just want to promise you that I actually do know what a dandelion is. It's good to know. What is the public health system in this area doing to address claims like this? This belief that dandelions and violets and strawberries are just as good for you as proven medical science. Yeah, I spoke to David Aoki,

who is the chief nursing officer in Waterloo region. That region has the largest and most diverse population of Mennonite people in all of Canada, some of whom speak low German. David does outreach within the community around measles. He told me that COVID created this sort of divide between the local Mennonites and public health. We will work with them in their language. So we use translators, interpreters. We don't want to

break a relationship over one issue. So we try to build the trust over time, provide good information, but a lot of what I've talked about COVID, things like shutdowns, things like isolation away from churches and things like that, that things like isolation away from churches and things like that, that didn't help build that trust. And so we're in a situation now, three or four years later, where we're trying to rebuild some of those relationships that we were working on before COVID. There was already a little bit of tension between government and some populations. With our broader population, we can put something out in minutes on our website and get social media out and the message gets

distributed fairly well. With this group, we're talking over landlines with people and we're using in some cases phone chains where one person will call one person. So the message just takes longer to get out. It still gets out. Yeah, so you heard him say that they don't want to break a relationship over one issue. And he says it's not only about convincing them to get vaccinated, it's about rebuilding trust too and getting them appropriate healthcare. What about people outside of that Mennonite community? Yeah. So public health officials say the measles outbreak in southwestern Ontario is disproportionately impacting the Mennonite and Amish communities, but of course, measles is contagious.

It doesn't stop at the community. Exactly. Yeah, it's contagious. Anybody can get it if they're not vaccinated or get a mild case if they are. I did stop at this one feed and seed shop in Tilsonburg off the side of the road. The owner, Holly Silverthorne, she's worried. I feel very unsettled that a lot of people in our area are getting measles right now

because it is a treatable, preventable illness that you know we could have had prevented all around. You know you want to try to avoid hospitals or public places where people might be exposed to it and you know, it's highly contagious. You can catch it really easy. So also my son, he works as a butcher and had told me that one of his friend's butcher shops had to be shut down because everybody there had measles. So the people that I hear that are having it

were never vaccinated, don't know the benefits of being vaccinated. People like my age, which are 40 to 50, it was mandatory that they got vaccinated to be in school and everything. I did it with my own children. And I guess that you're supposed to also get boosters which I didn't know. Yeah and David Aoki from Waterloo Region Public

Health says that they keep seeing more and more cases locally. The thing he really wanted to underline though and I think this is really important as well was his concern around stigmatizing the Mennonite community because of all of this. He says some Mennonites are vaccinated and the stigma will just make things worse. Finger pointing could cause them to retreat, as he put it, and pull away even further from public health. And obviously that's a huge problem. And unfortunately for now, he doesn't think the outbreak has stabilized and he expects cases to keep rising. James, thanks very much for this. Thank you.

James Shirani is a producer here at The Current. In a statement, a spokesperson for Ontario's Minister of Health says the province has met with the Mennonite Central community for feedback on how to communicate with that community, adding that local public health units have opened community immunization clinics in parts of Ontario where cases of measles are high.

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Alberta is also seeing a surge in measles numbers. There have been nearly 400 cases in that province. And that province is actually seeing the largest per capita growth in cases. Dr. Lenora Saxinger is an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. She's an Edmonton doctor. Good morning to you. Good morning to you.

Ontario, as we heard, is seeing measles cases mostly concentrated in one community. I want to talk about Alberta, but did you want to pick up on what we just heard from those people in that community, in the Mennonite community, saying that they aren't scared, they're not worried, they distrust the government and public health system, and that they know better, that they feel that vaccines aren't effective and that they are relying on things like dandelions and violets?

You know, as I was listening to the second lady, the second lady, I was thinking if I grew up in a community with her, I might not be vaccinated either because she was pretty compelling. But I think we're facing a very similar set of, I mean, there's going to be a range, but a similar set of attitudes in pockets and communities across Alberta. And when we look at the distribution of cases, the cases are mainly right now in our south zone, which does have a higher population of Mennonite communities. And then there's a smattering in some other, often in smaller communities in the north zone as well, with occasional cases popping up in larger centres, but they don't tend to spread as much

in larger centres because we have higher vaccination rates, like our vaccination rates in Calgary and Edmonton are really very robust comparatively. So it probably is going very much a similar way as Ontario, which is a big concern. How do you reach people who are distrustful of politicians and of doctors and convince them that vaccines are safe and effective and are the way to slow and stop this outbreak? Well, I mean, some of the approaches are based on things that we have worked on in anti-vaccine studies for some time, and, you know, the appeal to nature and things like that. There's approaches, but I think the bigger thing is both the trust and the access to people, and, you know, trying to avoid stigmatizing them,

which is, which was raised there too, because this is not a phenomenon to any specific group. It's just any close-knit group where people share views very strongly and that view includes not getting vaccinated. That group is at risk of higher rates. And it's happened in other kind of religious and cultural communities. And when you look at what has worked, I was reading about some outbreaks that have occurred in Israel and other places, you really do end up having to work very closely with community leadership because if you can get a local, I guess you'd say, religious influencer on

board that can make things go much better. And I think it can be quite a difficult process because there's a lot of self-reinforcing beliefs in some groups. The danger is that measles spreads like wildfire and it's not, as we said, it's not going to be contained within a community. A community's borders aren't solid and firm.

People move in and out of those community spaces. And of the hundred people who've been hospitalized in Ontario, 75 have been children. How serious, just remind us how serious measles can be. Well, measles can be brutal. I mean, I think people who grew up when measles was circulating widely, like in the 50s and 60s, I mean, they survived it

and they're immune now, but a lot of people don't and they can have long lasting consequences as well. And so the, you know, usually quoted death rate that you'd see in the 1950s would be about one in 1,000 cases. And then along with that, a fairly high number of kids, like more like 10 to 20 percent might end up with ear infections, pneumonias, and these are not necessarily trivial infections on top of that. There can be late consequences and you know, even adults who get it, there's a not insignificant rate of

hospitalization from it. So it is a serious whole body viral illness that can affect every organ system. And it's miserable at the best and deadly at the worst. We got a statement from the office of Alberta's minister

of health saying that that government has taken in its words swift and proactive measures, ramping up additional measles clinics, extending hours of existing ones, launching a social media campaign. They say they're seeing results as well between mid-March and the end of April there was an increase of nearly 68 percent in measles vaccinations administered compared to the same period last year. Is your sense that that is enough to nip this in the bud? I would say that the risk is that those numbers are a lot of the worried well. You're going to be seeing people who've had one dose who want their second dose. You're going to see people

who just kind of fell off track with childhood vaccinations during the pandemic. That you're not reaching the people who are already distrustful and not getting the vaccine. Well, they're not on social media. And so that's a lot of kind of shoe leather public health work where you really have to go out and interact with communities. And I think that that is actually really, really hard and it needs a lot of resources and it needs a lot of centralized support.

And I honestly don't know what's happening in that regard. I have no idea. What's going on more broadly from your perspective? I mean, how well are public health officials in Alberta dealing with this? It's been a much quieter campaign than some like example campaigns you might see in the past or even during COVID. And so there, there's a lot less visibility at least, um, to,

you know, like example, even to me, um, I can't, don't, don't really have access to the data as I used to. There, I think, has been up until recently, not as much visibility of, you know, acknowledging the problem as you might have seen in the past and as you might see in Ontario. But I think that, you know, at some point, a threshold was reached where it did become a more obvious priority and we're seeing some more visibility of this as an issue. And hopefully that will help inject resources as needed and support to get out there. Because if you look at the experience in the early 2000s when a lot of today's doctors trained there was many years where

there's less than 10 cases a year in the entire country. And right now we're at 1,500 cases and that's 10 times higher than last year already. And so there is kind of a precedent here that this can continue to smolder along for quite a long time. We're almost out of time. Can I ask you, you mentioned COVID, how has the pandemic changed this conversation around vaccinations? Oh, I think that it really did accelerate

anti-vaccine sentiment and elevated conspiracy thinking. It reduced trust and any community where those things have been very prevalent are communities that are going to be at some higher risk because those things all really travel with anti-vaccination sentiment and engaging with communities I think will be more difficult. So you know I think it's had a profound effect and it's been a major setback in terms of you know public health interacting with communities across Canada but lots of places in Alberta.

Do you expect cases to rise continue to rise in the coming weeks and months? Do you expect cases to rise, continue to rise in the coming weeks and months? I do think it's likely to smolder along in under vaccinated areas especially and the more that happens the more their spillover that affects vaccinated people as well. You know and I think we're going to be testing and really accessing the unvaccinated and under immunized people with this because exposure is extremely likely, like 90% likely to result in disease. And so I don't think it's going to go away soon unless there's a lot brought to bear.

We'll leave it there, Lenora. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.