by P.J. Harston
Northern News Services

NNSL (NOV 29/96) - The timing was perfect and the price was right.

For less than the cost of a Dodge Ram pick-up truck, measles has likely been eliminated from the North, says a territorial health official.

And that comes just when the territories is expecting it's usual measles outbreak, something that occurs every six or seven years.

"We haven't had one case reported yet this year," territorial medical health officer Dr. Andre Corriveau said Wednesday.

The last outbreak occurred in the early 1990s when more than 300 territorial residents contracted the disease, which can cause brain damage and death.

The North bought into a nation-wide two-dose vaccination program in January -- at a territorial cost of about $21,000 -- to replace the old single-dose program that proved only 90-per-cent effective.

"We'll have firm figures in a couple of weeks, but most regions are reporting a 100-per-cent or near 100-per-cent immunization rate," said Corriveau.

Under the program, newborns will receive both doses a few weeks apart. School children received the second shot late last spring or this fall.

Most individuals over the age of 18 have already had the disease, which results in life-long immunity following recovery.

Across the country, the program has been called a dramatic success, says the doctor who is tracking it.

Since July, there have been only 31 cases in Canada, compared with 287 in the first half of the year, said Dr. Paul Varughese of the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control in Ottawa.

Although Canada had the highest per-capita rate of measles in the Americas so far in 1996, most of the cases developed before new programs went into effect.

Thirty-three countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean have reported no cases this year, according to the World Health Organization.

There were only 24 confirmed cases outside North America.

Canada had 318 and an additional 543 were verified in the United States.

The Canadian Public Health Association said South America's good record is the result of an international polio vaccination program.

"In 1994 polio was declared eradicated in the Americas," a spokeswoman said.

But Canada didn't follow its southern neighbor's lead until this year. Varughese said the logistics of a two-shot dose program took time, money and planning.

"In those other countries, they employed a blitz system, where they vaccinated all people in some areas at certain times of the year," he said.

This year, all provinces except New Brunswick gave infants two shots spaced a month apart.

A catch-up program was adopted in most provinces and territories, including the NWT to reach all school-aged children who have not already received the two-shot dose.

Measles has caused multiple deaths as recently as 1989 in Ontario and Quebec, when an epidemic resulted in six deaths.

Canada's worst measles epidemic in 1926 resulted in 892 deaths. Currently only about one person a year dies of measles, said Varughese.

Recent outbreaks of the disease in central Canada will probably never be seen again if the success of the new vaccination program continues.

"We have targeted the date of Jan. 1, 2000, to eradicate the disease," he said.