Measles Warning for Passengers on July Beijing to Vancouver Air Canada Flight

Passengers aboard an Air Canada flight in July from Beijing to Vancouver may have been exposed to measles, the British Columbia Center for Disease Control (BCCDC) announced Sunday.

"Passengers who travelled on Air Canada flight 30 which departed Beijing on Thursday, July 31 at 4.05pm and arrived at Vancouver YVR at approximately 11.20am on the same date, may have been exposed to measles. A sick passenger who was coughing on the flight disembarked in Vancouver and a diagnosis of measles was laboratory confirmed on August 1 in Vancouver," BCCDC said in a statement.

"The incubation period (time to develop symptoms after being exposed) for measles is about ten days but ranges from 7–21 days. Symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes, followed by a rash that starts centrally including on the face and spreads to the limbs and lasts at least three days. Measles can be a serious infection and is very infectious to others.

"If you travelled on this flight, check your immunization status. You are most at risk of measles infection from this flight if you are completely unvaccinated against measles and have never had measles disease, including babies. If you are born after 1970, to be protected against measles you should have received two doses of measles containing vaccine (often given as combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine or MMR). If you were born before 1970 and travelled to or from China, you should have received one dose of measles vaccine at any time prior to travel," the BCCDC advised.

Your correspondent caught measles in Beijing in 1997, and had been fully inoculated as a child. So yes, it can happen to you.

Read the full announcement from the BCCDC here.

Photo: Wikimedia