Awareness posters related to the measles outbreak, at the Taber Health Centre, in the largely Mennonite community of Taber, Alta., in October, 2025. Higher levels of hesitancy or opposition to vaccines have fuelled spread, particularly in Canada’s Mennonite community.Ahmed Zakot/Reuters
Manitoba is now outpacing every other province in measles cases, prolonging an outbreak that has persisted in Canada for roughly a year and a half.
The province recorded 170 confirmed and 28 probable cases just last month, which is more than half of the total cases Manitoba reported in all of 2025. The sharp rise in infections, totalling 284 so far this year, is being driven by lower vaccination rates and exposures at large-scale events, including an agricultural showcase and a Winnipeg Jets game.
Medical experts say vaccination rates must improve to quell the outbreak, which is stymieing Canada’s efforts to earn back its measles elimination status. Immunologist Dawn Bowdish said she would be “shocked” if Canada regains the designation within five years.
“We’re seeing a record start to 2026 for Manitoba and to a lesser extent Alberta,” said Dr. Bowdish, a professor of medicine at McMaster University. “In some ways, this was predictable because the data on vaccination rates in Manitoba had shown that they were lower than they should be, especially with children.”
She said there is no way out of this crisis without strengthening vaccine uptake – “it’s just too contagious.” Measles is so contagious that up to nine in 10 unvaccinated people will become infected after being exposed to an infected person.
How the measles made its way back into Canada
Alberta has also seen an upswing in measles infections with 162 confirmed cases reported so far this year. This is in addition to 2,009 cases last year. The Alberta government has rejected expert advice to expand public reporting to include probable cases, meaning the number of cases is an undercount.
Canada’s outbreak began October, 2024, in New Brunswick stemming from an international traveller. Ontario and Alberta were hardest-hit, particularly in the rural areas of both provinces where vaccine opposition and hesitancy allowed the virus to spread freely. Ontario declared its outbreak, which sickened 2,375 people, over last October.
There have been two deaths in Canada, one each in Alberta and Ontario, of premature babies infected in utero.
Last November, the Pan American Health Organization, a regional arm of the World Health Organization, notified Canada that it had been stripped of its measles elimination status after failing to interrupt transmission within one year of an outbreak.
For nearly 30 years prior, the country had been free of endemic measles. Canada can regain its status if it records one continuous year without sustained transmission.
‘If the numbers are right, we’re in trouble’: Behind the comeback of measles in Canada
In Manitoba, the majority of cases are among people who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine. Two doses are needed for maximum immunity.
Rural family physician Nichelle Desilets, who is president of Doctors Manitoba, said 30 babies under the age of 1 have contracted measles since the outbreak started. There have also been 12 cases of measles in pregnant individuals and two cases of congenital measles.
She said cases are concentrated in Manitoba’s Southern Health region, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the province. Nearly 64 per cent of children under 2 were immunized against measles in 2023, the most recent year of data available. Provincial coverage was 80 per cent.
The same correlation was noted during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Desilets said. What’s concerning now, she added, is that there are also increases in neighbouring health regions where major exposure sites have been identified.
She said medical misinformation is playing a big role in the growing crisis, including on social media where alternative remedies have been promoted, sometimes for profit. The debunked claim that the MMR vaccine is linked to autism is among the misleading information circulating.
Death of premature Alberta baby with measles was not made public for months, documents show
“Patients have a lot of sources of information coming at them and it can be overwhelming,” Dr. Desilets said. “I just want all patients to know, across Canada, that physicians are not there to push you into getting vaccinated. We are here to ensure that you have the facts that you need so that you can make your own fully informed decision for yourself and your family.”
Higher levels of hesitancy or opposition to vaccines have fuelled spread, particularly in Canada’s Mennonite community.
Jared Bullard, a professor of pediatrics and child health at the University of Manitoba, said there are immunization concerns with Manitoba’s Mennonite population but he noted that vaccine aversion is not unique to that community.
He said part of the problem is that some individuals do not realize how serious an infection can become – not just the rare possibility of death.
“When people have no living memory of a specific event or disease, it stands to reason that they’re going to say, ‘well what’s the danger?’ You get sick for a few days, get a rash and carry on,” he explained. “But they don’t appreciate that there is a significant risk of having a pneumonia or a brain infection or long-term, decades-later complications as well.”
Dr. Bullard is encouraging Manitobans to get vaccinated, not just to protect themselves but others.