Alberta has yet another new, terporary top doctor.

The province announced late Thursday afternoon Dr. Sunil Sookram has temporarily been appointed as interim chief medical officer of health for Alberta.

The appointment is effective immediately, the province said. It comes after the province said the previous CMOH, Mark Joffe, was no longer in the role.

Sookram currently is the medical director and chief of medical staff at Strathcona Community Hospital in Sherwood Park.

He is also a clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of Alberta and practises as an emergency doctor at the University of Alberta Hospital.

The Alberta government said Sookram’s temporary appointment “ensures continuity while arrangements are finalized for a longer-term appointment.”

The government said Sookram brings years of front-line experience and leadership to the interim role, as well as recent experience working within Alberta Health, and will be supported by zone medical officers of health at Alberta Health Services.

The CMOH acts as a liaison between the government and Alberta Health Services, medical officers of health and executive officers in administering the Public Health Act.

Mark Joffe held the role for two years and five months, before the province revealed this week his contract ended on April 14.

At the time of his hiring, the province said Joffe’s interim appointment that took effect Nov. 14, 2022 would continue until the minister of health rescinded the appointment. No end date was ever disclosed prior to Tuesday.

Joffe was appointed Alberta’s interim chief medical officer of health after the then-newly elected Premier Danielle Smith followed through on her pledge to remove his predecessor Dr. Deena Hinshaw from the position.

Unlike his predecessor, Joffe rarely appeared at health news conferences to address Albertans or responded to requests for interviews.

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Dr. Sookrum’s appointment comes as Alberta deals with a surge in measles cases.

Once declared eradicated in Canada in 1998, measles is now making a comeback, spreading rapidly in recent months due to declining vaccination rates.

On Thursday, Alberta reported six more cases of measles Tuesday, bringing the province’s total to 89 since the beginning of March. Of those, the province said 83 are now past the period of communicability.

Over half of the cases in the province are in central Alberta.

Government data shows the majority of cases reported so far have been in children.

Of the 89 cases, 21 are in children under the age of five, 57 are in youth between five and seventeen, and the remaining are in adults.

As of April 12 (the latest data available), 65 cases were in people who are not immunized at all, six came from people who’d received one dose of the measles vaccine, and there was one case in someone with two or more doses, and additional case where their immunization status was unknown.

The same data says that as of April 12, at least eight people have been hospitalized.

Calls from medical experts and the Opposition NDP had been mounting over recent weeks to have Joffe address the public on the measles outbreak, but Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said earlier this month that Joffe didn’t think the situation was dire enough to warrant such a step.

He published a written statement last Friday encouraging Albertans to get vaccinated and warning that measles is a much more serious disease than common childhood illnesses.

Measles can ‘erase’ your immune system’s memory

Measles is an extremely contagious disease and is spread easily through the air.

Symptoms include:

• Fever of 38.3° C or higher
• Cough, runny nose and/or red eyes
• A rash that appears three to seven days after fever starts, usually beginning behind the ears and on the face and spreading down to the body and then to the arms and legs. The rash appears red and blotchy on lighter skin colours. On darker skin colours, it can appear purple or darker than the skin around it, or it might be hard to see.

Complications of measles can include ear infections, pneumonia, inflammation of the brain, premature delivery, and rarely, death.

The highly contagious virus doesn’t just cause a rash and fever — it can also wipe out the immune system’s memory, leaving survivors vulnerable to infections they’ve fought off before, like the flu, a cold, or even diseases they’ve been vaccinated against.

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Health Canada warns that measles can lead to serious immune suppression, known as immune amnesia. This can increase the risk of other illnesses and even raise the chances of death for months or even years after the infection, the health agency states on its website.

Measles, known for its characteristic red rash, is one of the most contagious viruses on the planet, with an R number of 12 to 18 — meaning one infected person can spread it to up to 18 others in an unvaccinated population. To put that in perspective, COVID-19’s original strain had an R number of about two to three, and even highly-transmissible variants like Omicron rarely exceeded 10.

People who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems and babies under the age of one are at greatest risk.

If symptoms of measles do develop, individuals are advised to stay home and call Health Link at 811 before visiting any health-care facility or provider, including a family doctor’s office or pharmacy.

The measles vaccine is highly effective at preventing infection and complications, and is free to get in Alberta.

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— With files from The Canadian Press