Measles vaccine ‘catch-up clinics’ open across Interior Health region

Interior Health is offering measles vaccinations across the region as the virus makes a comeback in other jurisdictions across North America.

Though there are fewer than a dozen confirmed cases in BC, confined to the Lower Mainland, the health authority is responding to the spread in an effort to bolster the region’s low immunization rate.

The so-called “catch-up” clinics will be open through the next six weeks across the Interior Health region.

“Interior Health encourages individuals of all ages to check their immunization records to see if they are protected against measles, and to get immunized if they are not,” medical health officer Dr. Sanaz Vaseghi said in a statement.

Most children have both doses by seven years old, but measles immunization rates have dwindled in recent years. In 2023, 72 per cent of seven-year-olds had two shots in BC, with just 66 per cent within Interior Health, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control.

The accepted target to eliminate measles is to have 95% of people immunized, but the national average is below 90%.

After achieving measles elimination status in 1998, a global resurgence and nearly 2,000 cases across Canada as of last month means that title could be lost.

The bulk of confirmed cases of the highly contagious virus are in Ontario, with more than 1,400, followed by Alberta with around 300.

Interior Health has seen immunization rates drop over the last decade, so the catch-up clinics are open to children and adults alike.

“These clinics are intended to raise immunization rates, recognizing two doses of measles vaccine are almost 100 per cent effective in preventing this serious illness and last a lifetime. Immunizations are the best defence against measles and other infectious diseases,” Dr. Vaseghi.

Until late June, vaccine clinics will be periodically open across the region including Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna and Salmon Arm.

More information about the clinics and about the measles virus can be found on the Interior Health website here.

— With files from The Canadian Press