Canada is reportedly on the verge of losing its “measles elimination” status due to an outbreak spreading from New Brunswick that began exactly one year ago on Monday.

Canada was certified by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) as a nation that “eliminated” measles in 1998. Elimination status requires zero confirmed cases of local transmission for 12 consecutive months, although a modest number of cases imported by travelers from other countries are allowed.

For most of the past three decades, Canada has reported a median annual measles incidence of 0.87 cases per one million population. These vanishingly low numbers began to tick upward in October 2024 with the outbreak in New Brunswick, which appears to have begun with a single individual who contracted the disease

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