The Current - Is Canada losing the battle against measles?

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Canada has held its measles elimination status since 1998 — but medical experts say that could change in the coming weeks. We speak with Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist, and professor of medicine at McMaster University, about what's driving the spread of measles in Canada, what it means for public health, and why she thinks Canada desperately needs a National Vaccination Registry.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. She can potentially lose her hearing. The side effects from the disease can show up, you know, seven to ten years down the road from now. Like, her brain can swell randomly and she can die. This is what happens when you don't vaccinate.

That's Morgan Birch, a mom in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Her daughter was too young to get the measles vaccine, and earlier this year, she ended up contracting the virus. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases in the world, and the number of cases in Canada has continued to grow. Many of them are in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario, and parents with young children are becoming increasingly concerned. Samantha Joyce is a first-time mom in Winnipeg. I don't want her to get sick. I'm really scared about that. It does make me a little weary of bringing her out and being around other people. especially, I know it sounds bad, but if I do hear them cough, I just go, just want to stay away a little bit and wash my hands, sanitize.

Canada has held measles elimination status since 1998, but with vaccine uptake rates falling and the disease spreading, some health authorities fear we are about to lose that status. Dawn Boutish is an immunologist and professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University. she studies respiratory infections and vaccinations. We reached her in Hamilton this morning. Dawn, good morning. Thank you so much for having me. What goes through your mind hearing those parents? Oh, I feel for them.

They're absolutely right. Every new baby born is a baby who's vulnerable to measles. And unfortunately, we know that having measles early in life can lead to really serious complications, including children not living up to their full intellectual or physical potential or having these really horrific consequences down the road. So measles vaccines have saved more lives than any of the other vaccines we have. And it's so important to stress this is not a trivial childhood infection. This can have really life-changing consequences.

The country has been wrestling with these cases for some time. Now, what does it mean if, indeed, Canada loses its measles elimination status? Well, practically from a day-to-date to change anyone's lives, not so much, but it's an embarrassment, really, to be on the same list as countries who are torn apart by war, civil unrest, who don't have public health systems like we do. And it really highlights the fact that many things and many systems went wrong to get us to where we are now and that it'll be a lot of work to get us back on track. Who actually decides whether that status gets revoke? What's the process around this? So there's meetings of public health officials around the world that are held.

to have these discussions. And, you know, again, the label is not as important as what it means practically. So as an example, you might get a recommendation if you're traveling to Canada to get vaccinated because you're at risk of measles, which is, you know, something that should not happen in a country like ours. So, you know, although the actual label doesn't change very much, it is a bit of a humiliation. We used to be one of the groups who provided funds to help. those other warrant ordinance countries get measles vaccines and now we're on the same list as them.

And it's, am I right in understanding that there's actually not much question of whether or not Canada will lose it? It has to do with data and the fact that we have been struggling with measles for a year now means the status is just, it's a rubber stamp at this point. I would be shocked, if anything other than losing that status happened. Give us a sense of how bad the spread of measles is in Canada right now. Well, proportionately, it's extremely high. And, you know, despite the fact that we have many good public health systems in place, proportionately, we've had more cases than the U.S.

And I think what has happened is, you know, there were pockets of people in the original cases that were unvaccinated, so it spread really quickly. But people being mobile like they are, you know, one of the times my sort of heart sunk was when I was looking at the measles exposure list. I saw major tourist attractions, you know, transportation hubs, major hospitals. So once it gets within a community and spread, it's really easy to get out of those communities. And that's exactly what we've seen as it's moved across the country. And who's at greatest risk as it does move? Well, every baby born is a baby who's vulnerable to measles. But the people who are greatest at risk in general are people who are unvaccinated.

Fortunately, older adults, people before in 1969 have been exposed and measles immunity seems to be quite durable. There's a few open questions about specific like cancer therapies and things like that that might leave a person vulnerable, but in general, older adults are okay. People who have had their two doses are unlikely to get measles and if they do, it's thought to be much less severe. So the people who are the most vulnerable are people who have started their vaccination and only have one dose who are unvaccinated. and the people who have the highest risk of having these really horrific long-term consequences are babies and young children. Some places in the country have had better luck getting measles cases under control than others, if I'm not mistaken, Quebec, for example. What is the difference? Why have some jurisdictions fared better? Well, there's a combination of things that you need to get these under control.

You need to have very strong public health units. So many people, my age and older, will remember that you couldn't. go to school without showing your vaccination status. And those rules across Canada have always been on the books, but at times they haven't been enforced. So places that have strong public health that are empowered to make sure that people have their vaccines up to date tend to do better. Some of the provinces have vaccine registries to help people identify places where there might be gaps in vaccination coverage. There's been a real desire to have a national one so we could make better decisions that way.

Yeah, help me out with that. I know that's something that you're very much in favor of. What would it change? So one of the things that Canada lacks compared to all our G7 competitors is we don't have a national vaccine registry. So if I wanted to know how many vaccines I got when I got them, a lot of those records, especially because many Canadians, myself included, have got vaccines over the country or out of the province.

Extremely hard to find those records. And so a national vaccine registry is a place to record that and it travels with you so that even if you move provinces or get vaccines out of the country, you can log those on. And it also helps policymakers identify regions where there's low coverage and it helps with tracking for other things, vaccine side effects, et cetera, et cetera. So most countries use those to help fight and combat these. Canada is a bit of an outlier because the way our provincial vaccines are administered, we don't really. have good national conversations at the national level. But that's something that would certainly help policymakers and people, because I've talking to so many people who weren't aware that they needed two doses or, you know,

they might have not had them when they were a kid and never had a conversation with their parents to know that. How much of this is about a lack of will on the part of some officials? Because we have been wrestling with this for some time now. And as we say, one of the world's most contagious diseases. Mm-hmm. Will's a big part of it. So I think there were already signs that things were going to be problematic in 2019. If you look back at the number of outbreaks we had in 2019 and the time it took to sort of close them up a little bit longer than people were comfortable with. And then the pandemic hit and of course, you know, we didn't have any infections. So there was a brief period and now we've had this explosion. I don't, it's hard for politicians and policymakers to make this a top priority. when we're living in this time where there's so many other different priorities and when there's now sort of this political aspect of a vaccine and vaccine policies. So for someone to to take the lead on this, I think would be incredibly, incredibly helpful to Canada and help get us on track. But yeah, political will.

And funding for public health is another political decision. We really need to get improvements in. We just have a minute left. But I mean, action is one thing. I suppose tone is another. Given some of the conversations we've had since the pandemic about vaccinations, perhaps you don't want politicians speaking in front of microphones too loudly about the insistence of doing this and rather leaving that work to public health officials. I don't know. Sure. I mean, but on the other hand, you know, one of the things in the province of Ontario, we have a populist government who's very pro-vaccines. And I think that really speaks to the fact that vaccination should never be a political issue. It's too important.

And I think having people on both sides of the political spectrum speak to how important this is, I do think has value and is important. Okay. Listen, well, the conversation about this, unfortunately, John, Don Bowdish looks like it's going to continue. We thank you for giving us some insights today. Absolutely any time. Thank you. Don Bowdish is an immunologist and professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University. She was in Hamilton, Ontario. This has been the current podcast.

You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.