CHARBONNEAU – How one person infected North America with measles

LEA KNELSEN, a Canadian, unknowingly brought measles to more than 10,000 in Canada, America and Mexico.

She left Thailand on Oct. 15, 2024, to attend her sister’s wedding to be held in a small New Brunswick community.

The occasion was ripe for infection with 167 on the wedding guest list.

She had come all this way and although she felt rotten, she was determined to attend. Knelsen thought it was just jet lag from the 18,000 kilometre trip.

She told Globe and Mail reporter Nathan VanderKlippe in a recent feature article: “I thought, ‘I just need to get through the day.’”

Had she not gone, the measles epidemic could have been halted.

VanderKlippe’s article says Knelsen didn’t feel any better after the wedding so she went to a nearby hospital. The doctor had no clue what was affecting her.

Maybe it was scarlet fever? And maybe her sore throat meant she had strep? A strep swab tested negative, but she was sent her home with antibiotics. But her throat continued to worsen. She could not eat or keep down the antibiotics.

“It just went from bad to worse,” she told VanderKlippe.

No wonder that the doctor was baffled. Measles has been eradicated in Canada for 27 years. Measles is seen so infrequently seen that doctors could go an entire career without seeing a case.

Now she had pneumonia in one of her lungs. Her throat was so sore that it became impossible to swallow. Doctors said her liver had stopped functioning properly. They told her she was going into septic shock, blood poisoning that can kill in as little as 12 hours.

The Globe story goes on to say that five days after the wedding, her measles was finally diagnosed.

By then, all the guests had gone home and with them, the measles. Every single person that was at the wedding that did not have the vaccine got the measles.

Twelve days after the wedding the first cases stared to roll in. Measles was reported in Ontario. Some of the wedding guests had Mennonite relatives. They visited Mennonite communities in Alberta.

By early 2025, widespread transmission occurred in New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, B.C. Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

Then a girl showed up with curious symptoms in little Seminole, Texas, a Mennonite community with Canadian roots and a population of 7,000.

As in Canada, doctors were baffled over the girl’s symptoms. Her family hadn’t traveled anywhere. Finally, they were able to confirm that it was measles.

Measles spread like wildfire through the community. But where did it come from?

That Mennonite community is closed society and they were suspicious of reporters such as VanderKlippe; reluctant to discuss who visited the community or where they came from.

One thing was clear: it came from Canada. Texas health authorities identified the viral lineage called “MVs/Ontario.CAN/47.24.”

Lea Knelsen isn’t an antivaxxer but wasn’t vaccinated. She thought childhood illnesses like measles was a thing of the past.

“I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore: It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious,” she told VanderKlippe.

The message is clear: infectious diseases are waiting at the doorstep. Open the door a crack and they will enter with a vengeance.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.