[Source: Reuters]

Canada has lost its measles elimination status after nearly three decades due to its failure to curb a year-long outbreak, the Pan American Health Organization said on Monday, a loss that also results in the Americas region losing the status.

Health experts last month predicted the Pan American Health Organization would strip Canada of the elimination status. The country has recorded more than 5,000 measles cases in nine of its 10 provinces and one northern territory.

“This represents a setback, but it is also reversible,” said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization, part of the World Health Organization.

Although the Americas region as a whole has also lost its elimination status, he said, individual countries keep their status. Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay and the United States are also facing active outbreaks.

“It’s a wake-up call for Canada,” said Isaac Bogoch, infectious diseases specialist at the Toronto General Hospital, that points to lapses in public health outreach and the need to lower barriers to immunizations.

Measles is a highly preventable disease when countries attain a 95% vaccination coverage rate. That is the level needed for a community to achieve herd immunity and protect those who are unable to receive the vaccine, which is 97% effective after two doses.

Health experts said spread of the virus, enabled by slipping vaccination rates in parts of Canada, is a harbinger of a resurgence of more vaccine-preventable illnesses in a population increasingly skeptical and mistrustful of vaccines since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Losing the status serves as a warning that measles could become endemic, continuously circulating and leading to hospitalizations and deaths, particularly among the most vulnerable children, according to health policy research group KFF.

The Public Health Agency of Canada in a statement said, “while transmission has slowed recently, the outbreak has persisted for over 12 months, primarily within under-vaccinated communities.”

It said it would focus on improving vaccination coverage, strengthening data sharing, and enabling better overall virus surveillance efforts.

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