Canada declares two-year measles outbreak over

The Public Health Agency of Canada has declared the country's two-year measles outbreak officially over, more than two months after the last case linked to the outbreak was reported. The announcement closes the largest Canadian measles epidemic in decades, but not the accounting that came with it.

The outbreak began in October 2024 in New Brunswick and ultimately spread to ten provinces and territories, with 6,417 cases linked to it in total, 1,032 of them this year. Ontario recorded the most cases at 2,390, followed by Alberta at 2,299 and Manitoba at 1,033, which declared its own 20-month outbreak over on October 16 after weeks without a confirmed case. Only Yukon, Nunavut and Newfoundland and Labrador recorded no cases. PHAC notes that most of the people who fell ill had not been vaccinated against measles.

The price of the episode goes beyond the case count. In November 2025, the Pan American Health Organization notified Canada that it had lost its measles elimination status, after a PAHO commission reviewed epidemiological and laboratory data and confirmed that the same viral strain had circulated sustainably in Canada for more than a year. Regaining the status requires keeping that strain stamped out for at least twelve months and demonstrating improved surveillance and the capacity to stop outbreaks quickly — a standard the country already met once and then watched slip.

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Joss Reimer, commended public health authorities, health-care providers, community organizations and families for ending the outbreak, while urging Canadians to keep routine vaccinations up to date. "While this milestone is encouraging, measles continues to circulate globally, and we can expect to see further travel-related cases here at home," Reimer said in a news release. Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel struck the same note: "So while the outbreak is over, our work to increase vaccination rates and protect the health of Canadians continue."

The virus has in fact not left. Three new confirmed measles cases were reported in Canada between October 4 and October 10 — travel-related, not linked to the closed outbreak. The declaration of victory rests on a border the disease does not recognize, and the elimination status now being rebuilt was lost to a population that had, in most cases, declined the shot that protects it.