Canada loses measles-free status.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) notified Canada that it “no longer has the status of a measles-free country,” the Canadian government reported on Monday (10).

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the UN's regional health agency, made this decision due to "the transmission of the same strain of the measles virus in Canada over a period of more than a year," the Canadian Ministry of Health explained in a statement.

Canada officially eradicated measles in 1998, but the virus that causes the highly contagious disease has resurfaced strongly, especially among unvaccinated members of certain Mennonite Christian communities.

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