Despite high measles rates in the Winkler and Morden area, many residents say they remain unconcerned about the illness, CBC News found during a recent visit.
The Southern Health region, which includes the two Manitoba cities, has seen more confirmed cases of measles in 2026 than any other in the country, with over 50, Health Canada’s most recent data says.
The return of a highly contagious disease, which until recently had been eliminated by vaccination in Canada, is nothing to get too worked up about for some people in the region.
“I think people are making a little bigger deal out of it than it actually is,” Maddy Friesen, who doesn’t know anyone affected, said outside a mall in Winkler, about 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.
“If you get it, it sucks, but what can you really do? You get it, you get better, you get the antibodies and you’re good to go.”
Measles is a topic most people asked for comment on the streets of Winkler did not wish to discuss.
Deputy Mayor Andrew Froese said unless you are infected or work in the health-care field, life hasn’t changed.
“Honestly, I don’t hear a lot of it outside of the health world. So in our everyday lives here in Winkler, there may be some conversations in the coffee shop, but it’s not a common conversation, I would say, right now,” Froese said.
People in the city follow public health guidelines but generally aren’t concerned, he said.
“A lot of us don’t see what’s going on in the hospital. We see what’s going on in our workplaces or in public, and for myself, I don’t see it very often,” said Froese.
“So when they report cases, I mean, sometimes we’re a little bit surprised.”
CBC News also reached out to the mayor of neighbouring Morden. Nancy Penner’s office declined to comment on the issue.
As of this week, provincial data shows there have been 27 measles admissions to hospitals in Manitoba since the province first notified the public of a January 2025 exposure in Winkler.
Two of those patients ended up in intensive care, and 18 were younger than 10.
Dr. Eleni Galanis, the director general for the emerging and respiratory infections and pandemic preparedness branch at the Public Health Agency of Canada, said most people infected with measles get a rash, a fever, red eyes and spots in the mouth, and then recover.
“But a small proportion can get severely infected and require hospitalization, either because they develop pneumonia — which is pneumonia due to a virus, which is hard to treat — or inflammation of the brain, which can lead to long-term complications like deafness and … blindness,” Galanis said.
Manitoba Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin has listed five neighbouring rural municipalities, all within the Southern Health Region, as having persistently high levels of measles transmission: Stanley, Rhineland, Thompson, Dufferin and Roland.
Business as usual
The cities of Winkler, with a population of nearly 14,000, according to the 2021 census, and Morden, with a population of over 9,000, are surrounded by the rural municipality of Stanley, and serve as urban centres for the area dealing with the current outbreak.
At the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden, which is in the building that hosted the area’s mass vaccination site during the COVID-19 pandemic, director Adolfo Cuetara said he has been closely following the measles updates for his city, but visitors are either unaware of the outbreak or not concerned.
The centre broke attendance records last year with nearly 16,000 paid visits, but Cuetara is worried that might not last if the area continues to have high measles rates.
The city has had more attention for its fossils and the science around them than for the measles, he said.
“We need to keep that that way.”
But the outbreak isn’t showing signs of going away, with area municipalities being the source of 27 confirmed cases of measles in three weeks this year. Provincial health experts estimate actual infections to be 10 times higher.
Strained hospitals
When patients with measles go to health-care centres, isolation protocols are used to try to contain the disease.
“Anyone who presents with measles is directed to either an airborne isolation room or into a room that has a door that can be closed at all times,” said Margo Singleton, an infection prevention practitioner at the Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach, which is about 100 kilometres northeast of Winkler and also part of the Southern Health region.
The room then has to be cleaned and air must be exchanged before the space can be used again, because the measles virus can linger for hours in the air or on surfaces.
But those protocols affect available space at places like the Boundary Trails Health Centre, which is located between Morden and Winkler and is the region’s major hospital.
Boundary Trails has reported seven exposure incidents at its emergency department, public health office and ultrasound room since Jan. 19, and is the place most often listed in provincial exposure notifications.
In an effort to protect staff and patients, public health officials want people to call ahead to the hospital or clinic if they suspect they have measles.
“We can try to have an isolation room ready, or we can come out to the car — and I know that’s what they’ve been doing a lot,” said Bethesda’s Singleton.
Public health officials say the most effective way to prevent measles is through vaccination, which helped Canada achieve measles elimination status from 1998 until it was lost in November.
In the latest outbreak, 26 of the 27 people admitted to a Manitoba hospital with measles were unvaccinated for the illness or had unknown vaccination status, according to the province.
There have been 520 confirmed cases of measles reported in Manitoba since January 2025. Of those, 440 — or 85 per cent — involved people with no doses of the measles vaccine, and another 25 (five per cent) had unknown vaccination status.
Vaccine uptake lower
Vaccination rates among school-aged children are dropping in Southern Health, and they’re significantly lower than in the rest of the province.
In 2023, two-thirds of seven-year-olds in Manitoba were immunized against measles. In Southern Health, it was closer to half.
In 2015, 74 per cent of seven-year-olds in Southern Health were immunized against measles.
Many residents of the Winkler and Morden area in southern Manitoba say they remain unconcerned about the illness. Measles vaccination rates for seven-year-olds in the Southern Health region dropped from 74 per cent in 2015 to 53 per cent in 2023.
Manitoba’s top doctor said the province isn’t using mandates or restrictions to stop the outbreak.
“We’re going to continue to rely on messaging, access and … trying to build that trust [between] health-care workers and people of these higher risk areas,” Roussin said.
Promotions for Morden’s Feb. 14 Winterfest event and others, like a country and gospel concert in Winkler held last weekend, did not mention measles.
The province doesn’t have any official guidelines for large events.
But after a January measles exposure at Ag Days in Brandon — an event billed as Canada’s largest indoor farm show — resulted in dozens of confirmed cases, and another exposure at a Winnipeg Jets game, the province had a warning.
“Just sharing the same airspace as someone who has measles is a risk of transmission,” Roussin said.
“So our messaging is if you’re not vaccinated, especially if you’re high risk or you’re around people who are high risk, you really need to consider the risks involved in attending very large gatherings.”
As part of its vaccination outreach last spring, Southern Health had an immunization clinic at the kindergarten to Grade 3 Southwood School in the hamlet of Schanzenfeld, six kilometres south of Winkler.
Dan Ward, the superintendent of the Winkler-area Garden Valley School Division, did not respond to a request for an interview, but said in an email that the division is working closely with Southern Health to notify families and staff at risk of exposure, and sent a measles information letter to families of students.
Message not reaching all
Some of the people at Winkler’s mall didn’t realize there was an outbreak.
Graham Thiessen was back in the city from Alberta, visiting family.
“That’s the first time I’m hearing about it,” he said.
Other people visiting Winkler’s mall who spoke to CBC also said they didn’t realize there was an outbreak.
Michael DePauw, from Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, about 60 kilometres northwest of Winkler, had not heard about the measles outbreak, but said he was vaccinated.
DePauw is concerned about low vaccination rates.
“They think it should be their right to choose, but it’s affecting everyone else’s health, because they’re making their own personal choice.
“But in a society that doesn’t get enough immunization, then nobody’s effectively immune like they should be,” he said.
“Back in the good old days, everyone just got immunized at school and that was it.”
