By Sam Bennison

To Your Health

New poll show Canadians worry about rising anti-vaccine sentiment as measles spreads to B.C.

Mar 12, 2024 | 5:37 PM

PRINCE GEORGE—A recent Angus Reid poll shows that while 71 percent of Canadians worry that anti-vaccine sentiments could lead to unnecessary illness, one in six Canadians are against their children getting vaccinated. These points of view are coming to a head as B.C. experiences its first measles case since 2019.

Measles symptoms begin with a high fever, coughing and a runny nose. Shortly after the trademark measles rash spreads across the body. However, children can experience dangerous complications such as respiratory failure, inflammation of the brain leading to brain damage, and death.

The measles vaccine was first created in the 1960’s and has been proven to be a safe and reliable form of disease prevention. However, misinformation online has caused some people to be concerned about all vaccines. Philip Dovey a registered nurse and Senior Lab Instructor for UNBC says the healthcare system needs to find new ways to address the fears behind vaccines.

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“From my perspective, the first thing that we have to do is recognize that there are people on the other side of those concerns,” says Dovey. “[We] as health care providers, healthcare professionals and as a wider society need to do a better job of allaying those concerns.”

Dovey continues saying that people have been hesitant about vaccines as long as vaccines existed but the pandemic has worsened the situation.

“When public health mandates are put in place for people to be vaccinated, that’s when you can often see a big rise in vaccine hesitancy,” explains Dovey. “There ends up being a lot of conversation about personal freedoms and those being taken away and that’s been a big conversation in health care ethics for decades.”

If left unchecked measles will continue to spread especially as people travel for Spring Break.

“We have halved the childhood death rate since since vaccines came in snd so we don’t see the effect of those illnesses anymore,” says Dovey. “Because many most of us weren’t alive when that happened, we’ve kind of lost that perspective.So, we’ve lost perspective of the the real risks that these illnesses possess.”

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Email: sam.bennison@pattisonmedia.com