Canada Loses Measles Elimination Status

Canada's Public Health Agency announced on Monday that the country has lost its measles elimination status, a milestone achieved in 1998 and maintained for nearly three decades, due to sustained transmission of the virus for more than a year.

The decision followed a review by the Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization's regional office for the Americas, which examined epidemiological and laboratory data confirming ongoing spread of the same measles strain since October 2024. This outbreak, the largest in decades, has affected nine provinces and one territory, sparing only Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut, and Yukon. As of October 25, 2025, Canada had recorded 5,138 cases, including 4,777 confirmed and 361 probable, with 29 new infections reported in the week ending that date. The cases were distributed across Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories, with recent activity concentrated in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario.

Public health officials attribute the outbreak's persistence to low vaccination rates in certain...