“The measles epidemic in Canada is not under control”

Canadian Public Health Authorities reported 232 new measles in the country on Friday 232 new cases, taking stock of 4206 infections in 2025. Canada has not experienced so many infections for over 30 years, and several experts fear that the situation is getting worse in the coming months.

Canada has experienced its worst measles epidemic since the disease was declared eliminated in the country in 1998. And we are only half the yearrecalls Dr. Jesse Papenburg, pediatrician, infectiousologist and microbiologist at the Montreal Hospital for children at the McGill University Health Center.

With 6152 infected Canadians, the year 1991 is the last when Canada has identified more than 4,000 cases. From 1998 to 2024, there were an average of 91 cases of measles reported in Canada each year.

It is distressing to see an supposedly eradicated disease re -emerging. 10 years ago, we were shocked when there were 10 cases per yearsaid Dr. Lynora Saxinger. For this specialist in infectious diseases at the hospital of the University of Alberta, it is clear that the‘Epidemia of measles in Canada is not under control.

This is something that, as a specialist in infectious diseases, I never thought of seeing in Canadalaments the Saxinger Dre.

Nine provinces and TN -O. affected

From mid-February to mid-May, Ontario was at the heart of the epidemic. We reported between 100 and 200 new cases per week.

Recall that the first infections in the country occurred at a mennonite wedding in New Brunswick in October 2024. Some guests then spread the virus to their return home in Ontario.

Since then, cases have started to arise outside these communities and in more and more regions across Canada.

At the moment, the majority of new cases are declared in Alberta. This province has reported an average of 109 new infections per week since May. Alberta now has more cases of measles than all of the United States (1333 cases).

The authorities also monitor the situation across the country. British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia each reported about twenty new cases in the week of July 13 to 19.

We start to see the virus everywhere and that is worrying.

The return to class may increase the transmission of the virus, it fears.

The Alberta medical association has also sounded the alarm, saying fear that, without immediate action, the province will lose control of the situation at the start of the school year.

The situation is such that Canada will most likely lose its status as eradication of measles, recognized since 1998, according to the doctor and researcher Brian Ward, professor at the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine of McGill University.

Vaccination rates in question

Why do some provinces have more cases? And why does Canada have much more cases than several countries, such as the United States (1333), Mexico (1156), France (483) and Great Britain (2900)?

I think there is still an element of bad luck. We were unlucky that cases arise in communities with very low vaccination ratesDits and Dr Papenburg.

Among infected Canadians, 86 % were not vaccinated.

After all, the risk of a significant hatch of measles has been hovering for several years.

For the Saxinger Dre, it was just a matter of time before Canada faced as many measles. It is a highly contagious virus and we know that immunization rates in Canada are not high enough.

Moreover, in March 2024, British-Colombian researchers warned that the risks of a important epidemic measles were tall in Canada.

If an infected person goes to communities where the vaccination rate is low, it gets the situation. It is as if we were lighting a fire where there is drought.

In Alberta, 68 % of children who reached the age of 2 in 2024 were immune.

More than 60 % of health areas in Alberta experienced a decline in the vaccination rate from 2023 to 2024. In some places, the decline is more than 10 %.

In Ontario (new window)only 70 % of 7-year-old children received two doses of the vaccine in 2023-2024. Only one socio -anitary region had a vaccination rate of more than 95 %.

In British Columbia, the proportion of children aged 7 immune to measles rose from 90.9 % in 2013 to 72.4 % in 2023. Several regions have vaccination rates below 50 %.

Only one in three Quebec secondary school reaches the objective of public health to vaccinate 95 % of young people against measles.

Dr. Papenburg congratulates the efforts made by public health in Quebec during the hatching of 2024 to improve vaccination rates. But despite this, we still have schools that have well -desired vaccination rates below 95 %.

In fact, in some schools in Quebec, the vaccination rate is less than 50 %.

Honestly, we are lucky that there has not yet been any major hatching in Quebec in 2025.

Almost third of cases reported in Canada in 2025 on adults and more and more adolescents are infected, another sign of the sustained decline in the vaccination rate for several years, said Dr Papenburg.

Canada could continue to see thousands of cases annually if vaccination rates do not improve, warn these experts.

I think it will take sustained efforts for a long time so that we can have adequate vaccine coverage. It has to become a priorityestimates Dr Papenburg.

But countering vaccination hesitation is a process that takes a lot of time and resources, recall the DRS Ward and Saxinger, not to mention that the Cavid-19 pandemic accelerated vaccination hesitation.

Those who propagate disinformation [à propos des vaccins] are very followers and manage to scare parents. We must adopt a more delicate approach, without judgment, to be able to convince them to have their children vaccinatedbelieves Dr. Ward.

Possible severe complications associated with measles

I am afraid that people make the impact of this disease only when we will have much more casesfears the Saxinger Dre.

Measles is not a benign infantile disease, insists Dr Papenburg.

Measles can have a major effect on the immune system, adds Dr. Ward.

The measles destroys the immune system because the virus multiplies in our immune cells and destroys them. These are secondary infections that lead to hospitalizationsexplains Dr. Ward, who, during his medical career, observed thousands of cases of redness in Peru, the United States and Zimbabwe.

He adds that measles also makes the infected person likely to catch all kinds of other infections.

We must explain to people that their immune system may no longer be the same as before measles. We should explain to the population that measles acts as the HIV : The virus targets your immune system and deactivates it for several months. I think a lot of people, if they heard this information, might change an opinion on vaccination.