If measles keeps spreading, Canada may lose 30-year elimination status: PHAC – National [Video]

Canada has held measles elimination status for nearly 30 years — but that could be gone by the fall.

If the current outbreaks keep growing the way they have been, Canada could lose that status by October 2025, according to a recent risk update from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).

“It is a very substantial public health issue right now. Canada achieved measles elimination in 1998. We’ve not had outbreaks of this size in more than 30 years,” said Dr. Sarah Wilson, a public health physician from Public Health Ontario.

“I can only use the word startling to describe what it has been like as a public physician. And measles transmission will end once the measles virus stops finding people to infect.”

That means measles vaccination rates have to go up, she said.

And cases are not just exploding in Canada, but across the globe, in Europe and the United States, which …