Doctors Warn Measles Control in Canada at Risk
A year after Canada’s largest measles outbreak in decades began, doctors warn that disinformation, distrust, and fragmented vaccine records are threatening the country’s ability to control the disease.
While the outbreak has slowed, Canada now has the highest number of measles cases in the Americas, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). More than 5,000 confirmed and probable cases have been reported since October 2024 — including two infant deaths in Ontario and Alberta.
Once considered eliminated in 1998, measles could regain a foothold in Canada if vaccination gaps persist.
“To have a country like Canada on that list is frankly shocking,” said Dr. Dawn Bowdish, immunologist at McMaster University.
Disinformation undermines vaccination
Experts say misinformation about vaccines — spread widely through social media — is fueling hesitancy and leaving communities vulnerable.
“The measles vaccine has been studied backwards, forwards, and sideways in terms of safety,” said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta. “But disinformation campaigns make people afraid.”
Saxinger said countering false claims must become a coordinated effort, not a volunteer task for individual doctors. She urged governments to fund digital counter-messaging and examine how online algorithms amplify anti-vaccine content — as Europe has begun to do.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch of Toronto’s University Health Network added that disinformation now has “real-world consequences,” eroding trust in public health messages.
Distrust within communities
In provinces like Ontario and Alberta, outbreaks have been concentrated in religious or culturally distinct communities with long-standing distrust of authorities.
“There’s a lot of trust-building that’s required with some groups of the population,” said Saxinger.
In Aylmer, Ontario, Catalina Friesen, a Low German-speaking health worker, helps bridge that gap among Mennonite families.
“They won’t come see us if they don’t trust us,” Friesen said. “They’re not afraid of the vaccine — they just don’t want to be told what to do.”
She says mistrust stems from decades of broken promises and mistreatment, making relationship-based outreach vital for improving vaccination rates.
Calls for a national vaccine registry
Doctors also say Canada’s outdated and disconnected vaccination record system hampers outbreak control.
“It’s not as though doctors can easily know if a person is vaccinated,” said Dr. Jeffrey Pernica, pediatric infectious disease physician at McMaster Children’s Hospital.
Currently, records are often scattered between clinics, health units, and paper forms. During outbreaks, that forces health-care workers to manually verify immunization histories, slowing response times.
Bogoch and other experts call for a national vaccine registry to unify provincial data and identify under-vaccinated areas.
“It’s a no-brainer,” Bogoch said. “We need a national view of where the gaps are.”
Bowdish added that mobile Canadians would benefit from a single, nationwide record rather than separate provincial systems.
The road ahead
With international travel continually reintroducing the virus, experts say future outbreaks are inevitable unless vaccination coverage rises.
“We can’t prevent measles from landing here,” Bogoch said. “But we can prevent it from spreading — and that takes trust, effort, and sustained investment.”
