It didn’t have to be this way.

That’s how Alberta doctors are characterizing Canada losing its measles elimination status, more than 25 years after the most infectious disease in the world was eradicated in our country.

“This is pretty disappointing and very much frustrating,” said Dr. Craig Jenne, an infectious disease expert at the University of Calgary.

Declared eliminated in Canada in 1998, measles has made a comeback, spreading rapidly in recent months due to declining vaccination rates.

Alberta’s outbreaks have sickened nearly 2,000 people — almost all unvaccinated — since March and killed an infant who contracted the disease in the womb and died after being born.

The medical community saw the loss of the status coming for months now, Jenne said, after how quickly and widespre

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