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STRATFORD VOLUME 5 • ISSUE 43
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JUNE 12, 2026
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HPPH annual report highlights local challenges AMANDA NELSON
Times Reporter
Huron Perth Public Health (HPPH) has released its 2025 annual report, highlighting programs and services delivered throughout the year to prevent disease, protect health and promote well-being across Huron and Perth. The report highlights efforts in infectious disease control, vaccination, health promotion, health equity and community engagement. Key achievements include managing Ontario's largest measles outbreak, which included 297 probable or confirmed cases in the region, the highest number seen in three decades. “For most of my public health career, I haven't seen one case of measles; there would be a handful across all of Ontario every year, so this was a considerably large outbreak,” said Dr. Miriam Klassen, HPPH's medical officer of health. “There were 35 hospitalizations, and one of those was in the ICU. Fortunately, there were no deaths.” As measles cases increased, HPPH expanded measles vaccine eligibility to individuals six months of age and older who live, work, play, travel to or worship within the Huron Perth Public Health region. HPPH distributed 10,532 doses of measles-containing vaccine (MMR/MMRV) to primary-care providers in 2025, compared to 4,800 doses in 2024 and administered 1,251 doses in 2025, compared to 549 in 2024. “The biggest challenges were misinformation, both about measles and misinformation about the vaccine,” CONTINUED TO PAGE 2
Heather McLeod with her pooch Benson at the Dog Days of Summer event on June 4.
(EMILY STEWART PHOTO)
New tiny homes are by the community, for the community
CONNOR LUCZKA
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Early on in Lisa Wilde’s career at the Emily Murphy Centre, she sat in a playroom in their Barron Street location, watching a young toddler play. “And she’s going from bin to bin and shelf to shelf, touching things … and I said, ‘Hey, what’s your favourite thing?’ She walked over to the door, and she pointed at the block, and she said – three years old – ‘I'm safe here.’ … She knew, in that room, in that building, she was safe.”
Wilde, now the executive director of the centre, told that story to a packed barn on Kelly’s Lane, as part of the centre’s Tiny Homes … Big Impact fundraising event on June 4. Among other things, Wilde and the campaign co-chairs were asking for the community’s help in giving more families and more children that same feeling of safety. The Tiny Homes … Big Impact campaign is a community-driven initiative with the goal of building five new tiny homes on the centre’s existing land: safe, private CONTINUED TO PAGE 9