Canada has lost its measles elimination status, health officials said today, a major setback caused by a year-long resurgence of the disease largely among unvaccinated groups.

Canada was formally declared measles-free in 1998, an achievement credited to years of consistently high childhood vaccination rates.

However, an outbreak that began in the eastern part of the country in October 2024 has since spread nationwide, notably among certain groups of Mennonite Christians who have refused to vaccinate their children on religious grounds.

Canada has recorded 5138 measles cases so far in 2025, with the provinces of Ontario and Alberta the hardest hit.

Two newborns, born to unvaccinated mothers, have died from the virus.

Health Canada, a government agency, said in a statement that it has officially been informed by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) “that Canada no longer holds measles elimination status”.

The update came after PAHO, the UN’s regional health office, confirmed “sustained transmission of the same measles virus strain in Canada for a period of more than one year”.

Provincial health ministers are “discussing co-ordinated actions, including strategies to build trust [in vaccines] through community engagement”, Health Canada said.

The agency noted that while measles transmission “has slowed recently”, the outbreak has persisted “primarily within under-vaccinated communities”.

Samira Jeimy, from Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine, told AFP that Canada lost its status “because two-dose vaccine coverage dropped below the 95% threshold required to stop sustained transmission”.

The spread of the virus in under-vaccinated communities was, for experts, “easily visible as a signal of system fragility”, Jeimy said.

Canada first achieved measles elimination in 1998. Photo / 123RF

Paediatric doctors in Ontario have stressed that the outbreak is not confined to Mennonite groups.

Infections have also occurred among new immigrants from the developing world who, for various reasons, did not keep up with immunisations after settling in Canada – including because of an acute shortage of family doctors.

Regional spread

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory virus spread through droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or simply breathes.

It causes fever, respiratory symptoms, and a rash, but can also lead to serious complications, including pneumonia, brain inflammation, and death.

In a regional update, PAHO confirmed Canada was the only country in the Americas to lose its elimination status, but said several others were facing active measles transmission, including the United States.

In 2025, the US experienced its worst measles outbreak in more than 30 years, with more than 1600 confirmed cases.

A September Washington Post poll found that one in six American parents has delayed or skipped some or all of the standard childhood vaccines.

Some 9% have opted out of administering polio or MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) shots to their children, the poll found.

Vaccine resistance has mushroomed in the US in recent years, stoked in large part by debunked claims linking vaccines to autism.

The US Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy jnr, has played a significant role in fuelling those fears by repeating the false claims.

-Agence France-Presse