'It's the perfect storm': Doctors urge measles vaccinations as Alberta case counts rise

As concerns about measles grow, and case counts tick up, health-care workers are preparing for a surge and pleading with Albertans to ensure they're fully vaccinated.

Alberta Health said there were 11 confirmed cases in the province as of Monday afternoon, including one in the Calgary zone, two in the Edmonton zone and eight in the north zone.

One person is currently hospitalized with the highly contagious virus.

The youngest Albertan confirmed with measles at this time is a baby under one year of age, and the oldest is an adult between the ages of 35 and 54. 

According to Alberta Health, the age breakdown is as follows:

"I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg," said Dr. Sidd Thakore, a pediatrician at the Alberta Children's Hospital, who expects Alberta will see more cases in the next couple weeks.

"It's the perfect storm of a very contagious virus — that can last in the air or on surfaces — and with people that are not as vaccinated [as] before. I think we're going to see pockets of it increasing in the next one to two weeks."

In addition to being airborne, Thakore said the virus can also be difficult to contain because people can be contagious for up to four days before the rash appears.

He said Alberta Children's Hospital staff are preparing for more cases of a vaccine-preventable illness some of them have never had to deal with before.

"In the early 2000s you never heard about it. You never saw it," he said. "Now we're seeing it and we're going to have to deal with it. So my whole group in the hospital, we're just making sure we're up to date on what needs to be done."

Seeing Alberta's case count rise is frustrating for physicians, including Dr. Isabelle Chapados.

"This is 100 per cent preventable," said Chapados, a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta.

"It was written in the sky as rates of vaccination were coming down."

Alberta's routine childhood immunization schedule recommends children get two doses of the measles vaccine — the first at 12 months and the second at 18 months of age.