Rapidly increasing: Ontario communities engulfed with measles cases declare outbreak [Video]

A measles outbreak has been declared by two neighbouring Ontario public health units as there are now 19 confirmed cases of the virus in the area.

The top doctor with Grand Erie Public Health says there have been 16 cases confirmed in his area, which includes Brantford and Brant County as well as the Haldimand-Norfolk region.

“We’re seeing a lot of activity down here, particularly in the Haldimand-Norfolk area,” Dr. Malcolm Lock, the health unit’s acting medical officer of health, said.

“At this point, we’ve got 16 cases in total: 15 that are associated with Haldimand-Norfolk, one associated with Brant.”

He said 13 of those cases are among children and the remaining cases are adults.

“When this started, we were looking at this being just a cluster of cases that were occurring predominantly in a non-immunized group,” Lock said. “But we’ve now moved to calling it an outbreak because of the numbers that are very rapidly …