Canada is no longer measles-free because of ongoing outbreaks, international health experts said Monday, as childhood vaccination rates fall and the highly contagious virus spreads across North and South America.
The loss of the country’s measles elimination status comes more than a year after the highly contagious virus started spreading.
Canada has logged 5,138 measles cases this year and two deaths. Both were babies who were exposed to the measles virus in the womb and born prematurely.
Measles elimination is a symbolic designation, but it represents a hard-won battle against the infectious disease. It is earned when a country shows it stopped continuous spread of the virus within local communities, though occasional cases might still pop up from travel.
Measles typically begins with a high fever followed by a telltale rash that starts on the face and neck. Most people recover, but it’s one of the leading causes of death among young children, according to the World Health Organization. Serious complications, including blindness and swelling of the brain, are more common in young children and adults over age 30.
It is prevented by a vaccine administered routinely and safely to children around the world.
“It's a deeply disheartening development. It's a deeply worrisome development. And, frankly, it's an embarrassing development," said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Brown University infectious disease expert. “No country with the amount of resources of Canada — or other countries in North America even — should lose their measles elimination status.”
Canada eliminated measles in 1998, followed by the United States two years later. After hugely successful vaccination campaigns, the Americas became the first region in the world to be free of measles in 2016. Health officials estimate the measles vaccine prevented 6.2 millions deaths in the Americas between 2000 and 2023.
But vaccination rates have since slipped below the 95% coverage rate needed to stop outbreaks. Large outbreaks in Venezuela and Brazil in 2018 and 2019 cost the region its elimination status. It was reclaimed in 2024, but ends again with Canada’s loss.
Experts from the Pan American Health Organization, an independent health agency, made the determination after analyzing data on Canada’s outbreaks that showed the virus has spread continuously for a year.
It has never been easy to stop measles from circulating in local communities, Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization, said in a briefing Monday.
“As a region, we have eliminated measles twice,” Barbosa said. “We can do it a third time.”
In a statement, Canadian health officials said they were working with government and community partners to improve vaccination coverage, share data and provide evidence-based guidance.
The virus is one of the most contagious known to medicine. One infected person can spread it to up to 9 out of 10 unprotected people they come into close contact with. Health experts say, by far, the best prevention against measles is the vaccine, which provides 97% protection after two doses.
Barbosa's organization has confirmed nearly 12,600 cases this year across 10 countries, a 30-fold increase from 2024. The vast majority are in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, but Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Belize also have active outbreaks.
In 2024, the region had a 79% vaccination rate, an increase from years past but still too low, he said.
The U.S. eliminated measles in 2000. That status is at risk even though the large outbreak that killed three and sickened nearly 900 across Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma earlier this year is over.
Current outbreaks in the U.S. include 34 cases in South Carolina and one hitting towns on the Arizona-Utah border that has sickened more than 150 since mid-August.
A major question now is if either are linked to the Texas outbreak. To lose elimination status, health data must show a continuous chain of measles spread for one year.
International health officials have recommended the U.S. “enhance case investigation protocols,” because closing data gaps is key to stopping the virus from taking hold again, said Dr. Daniel Salas, who leads immunization efforts at the Pan American Health Organization.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 1,681 cases and 44 outbreaks this year, making it the worst year for measles in the U.S. in more than three decades. Only nine states haven’t confirmed cases, according to the CDC.
A large outbreak also continues in Chihuahua, Mexico, where health officials have confirmed 4,430 cases as of last week and 21 deaths, according to state health data.
Mexican and U.S. officials have said the genetic strains of measles spreading in Canada match those in the Texas and Chihuahua outbreaks. All those outbreaks affected certain Mennonite Christian communities who trace their migration over generations from Canada to Mexico to Seminole, Texas.
In August, officials said Mennonite communities in Belize, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay had outbreaks of the same type of measles virus.
Mennonite churches do not formally discourage vaccination, though more conservative Mennonite communities historically have low vaccination rates and a distrust of government.
It's tempting to look at the outbreaks in a vacuum, Nuzzo said. But many are likely linked, she said, not just by sick people traveling but also by anti-vaccine disinformation.
“It's not a religious prohibition in most of these cases,” she said. "It is just people being, perhaps, distrustful of authorities, but also preyed upon by these anti-vaccine influencers who profit off of the fears that some people may have."
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - A vial of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is pictured at International Community Health Services, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, file)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran kept up its attacks on Persian Gulf neighbors on Wednesday as airstrikes pounded Tehran, while U.S. President Donald Trump again made contradictory statements about whether he was ready to wind down the war or escalate it.
Trump struck a hard line Wednesday in a Truth Social post, demanding that Iran stop blocking the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway vital to global oil supplies — or the U.S. would bomb the Islamic Republic “back to the Stone Ages.” A day earlier, Trump said the U.S. “will not have anything to do with” ensuring the security of ships passing through Hormuz; that was an apparent backtrack from an earlier threat to attack Iran's power grid and other infrastructure if it didn't open the strait by April 6.
Trump, who is scheduled to give a televised address Wednesday evening, said Tuesday he could walk away from the war in two to three weeks once he felt confident Iran would not be able to build a nuclear weapon — even if Tehran does not agree to a ceasefire.
But his latest Truth Social post struck a more belligerent tone as more American troops move into the region for a possible ground offensive after weeks of airstrikes targeting Iran.
Trump also claimed Wednesday that “Iran's New Regime President” wanted a ceasefire. It wasn't clear to whom the U.S. president was referring since Iran still has the same president. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, called Trump's claim “false and baseless,” according to a report on Iranian state television.
Speaking earlier to Al Jazeera, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled Tehran’s willingness to keep fighting. “You cannot speak to the people of Iran in the language of threats and deadlines,” he said. “We do not set any deadline for defending ourselves.”
Since the war began on Feb. 28, Trump has offered shifting objectives and repeatedly has said it could be over soon while also threatening to widen the conflict. Thousands of additional U.S. troops are currently heading to the Middle East, and speculation abounds about the purpose of their deployment.
Just days ago, Trump threatened to attack Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub. And there has also been speculation about whether the U.S. could decide to send in military forces to secure Iran’s uranium stockpile — a complex and risky operation, fraught with radiation and chemical dangers, according to experts and former government officials.
Adding to the confusion is what role Israel - which has been bombing Iran alongside the U.S. — might play in any of these scenarios.
Trump has been under growing pressure to end the war as oil prices have skyrocketed, pushing up the cost of gasoline, food and other goods. The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was up more than 40% since the start of the war, trading at more than $103 a barrel on Wednesday.
A fifth of the world’s traded oil passes through the strait in peacetime, and even if it were to reopen quickly, some effects like higher food prices could persist for months or longer.
The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan aimed at bringing about a ceasefire, including a demand for the strait to be reopened and for its nuclear program to be rolled back.
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful. Its own five-point response includes retaining sovereignty over the strait.
In the interview with Al Jazeera, Araghchi acknowledged receiving direct messages from U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. He insisted, however, that there were no direct negotiations and said Iran has no faith that talks with the U.S. could yield any results, saying “the trust level is at zero.”
He warned against any U.S. attempt to launch a ground offensive, saying “we are waiting for them.”
A cruise missile slammed into an oil tanker off Qatar’s coast Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said. The 21-member crew of the tanker, contracted by state-owned QatarEnergy, was evacuated and no casualties were reported.
A fully-loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker came under attack off Dubai the day before, one of more than 20 ships attacked by Iran during the war.
In the United Arab Emirates, a person was killed when he was hit by debris from an intercepted drone in Fujairah, one of the country’s seven emirates.
Bahrain sounded two alerts for incoming missiles, while Kuwait’s state-run KUNA news agency said a drone hit a fuel tank at Kuwait International Airport, sparking a large fire.
Jordan’s military said it intercepted a ballistic missile and two drones fired from Iran in the last 24 hours. No casualties were reported. Two drones were also intercepted in Saudi Arabia, and air raid sirens sounded in Israel though there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
An airstrike on Tehran, meanwhile, appeared to have hit the former U.S. Embassy compound, which has been controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard since American diplomats were held hostage there in 1979.
Witnesses said buildings outside the massive compound had their windows blown out and that it appears the strike happened inside the walled facility.
Israel also said it hit a plant in Iran producing fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Israel and the United States have alleged in recent years that Iran was experimenting with using fentanyl in chemical weapons.
Iran acknowledged a strike Tuesday on Tofigh Daru factory, but insisted it only supplied “hospital drugs.” Hospitals use fentanyl to treat severe pain but it can also be fatal.
In Lebanon, at least five people were killed in an Israeli strike on a Beirut neighborhood.
Israel invaded southern Lebanon after the Iran-linked Hezbollah militant group began launching missiles into northern Israel days after the outbreak of the war. Many Lebanese fear another prolonged military occupation.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
Rising reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
A young girl is comforted by her father and Israeli soldiers as they take cover in a bomb shelter during air raid sirens warning of incoming Iranian missile strikes in Bnei Brak, Israel, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
People inspect the site of an Israeli strike amid debris and damaged vehicles in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A man feeds stray cats in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Firefighters and rescue workers work at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A firefighter extinguishes a car at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Israel's rescue teams and residents take shelter as sirens sounds next to a site struck by an Iranian missile in Bnei Brak, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A police vehicle is seen through a shattered windshield at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Two men ride scooters past charred debris at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
