Alberta has the highest number of cases per capital city, with 1,944 cases.
Before this outbreak, an average of 91 cases were reported annually in Canada.
How many cases are there in BC?
According to the latest report from the BC Center for Disease Control, there have been 337 cases of measles in BC in 2025.
More than three-quarters, or 264 cases, occurred in the Northern Health Region. Fraser Health had 41 cases, while Vancouver Coastal Health had 10.
What explains the spread of measles?
Measles is highly contagious, Lavioe said.
“It doesn’t take much. It only takes one case to spread it among those communities. It spreads like wildfire and really explodes with a large number of cases.”
Among adults, Canada’s measles coverage rate was 87 percent in 2023, well below the 95 percent needed to achieve herd immunity.
Childhood vaccination rates have also fallen steadily from around 90 percent in 2019 to 82.5 percent in 2023.
In B.C., just over 69 per cent of two-year-olds were up to date on routine vaccinations, although data shows children are catching up on their vaccinations as they get older.
B.C.’s vaccination rate is high enough, Lavoie says, but the virus is persisting and spreading among large groups of people and communities that are unvaccinated or undervaccinated.
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