Officials say person with measles flew from Vancouver to Edmonton to NWT

Feb 24, 2019 | 2:56 PM

VANCOUVER — Health officials in Alberta and the Northwest Territories are warning that a person with measles passed through Vancouver and Edmonton before flying to other destinations in the North.

Alberta Health Services says in a news release that an individual with a lab-confirmed case of measles took an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Edmonton on Feb. 12, then rode in an airport shuttle to a hotel in nearby Leduc.

The person visited a Walmart in Leduc later that day, and left Edmonton on a Canadian North flight for Inuvik, N.W.T., on Feb. 13.

Officials in the Northwest Territories have also issued a statement, warning that a person flew to Inuvik from an “international destination” on Feb. 13, and that the person’s travels also took them through Yellowknife and Norman Wells, N.W.T., the same day.

Damien Healy, a spokesman for N.W.T. Health and Social Services, confirms it’s the same person.

There was no immediate word on where the person had been before Vancouver.

Health officials in B.C. have been investigating nearly a dozen measles cases in the Vancouver area.

Many of them have been at two French-language schools in Vancouver, a cluster that began after an unvaccinated B.C. child contracted the disease during a family trip to Vietnam.

Vancouver Coastal Health announced Sunday in a tweet there are two new cases of people who were infected while travelling.

Health officials in both Alberta and the Northwest Territories advised people who aren’t vaccinated for measles and who may have been on board flights, in shuttles, at stores or hotels where the affected person was present to monitor themselves for symptoms.

Measles at first presents with flu-like symptoms, but then a fever develops followed by the distinctive rash.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press