More than 100 new cases of measles have been diagnosed in Ontario in the past week as a major, multijurisdictional outbreak spreads to new parts of the province.
Public Health Ontario’s latest surveillance report, released Thursday, notes 102 new cases of the viral illness – 92 of them confirmed, 10 of them probable.
The report also shows that the highly contagious virus has turned up in two new public health units: the Region of Waterloo and Lambton Public Health, which is home to the city of Sarnia.
“The sharp increase in the number of outbreak cases and the geographic spread in recent weeks is due to continued exposures and transmission among individuals who have not been immunized,” the report says.
Ontario is in the grips of the worst measles outbreaksince the vaccine-preventable disease was deemed eliminated in Canada in 1998. Public health leaders refer to an infectious disease as …