Measles Outbreaks and Elimination in North America | The CommonHealth Live!

Over the past year, outbreaks of measles, a highly transmissible virus, have affected thousands of unvaccinated people across Canada, Mexico and the United States. With more than 5,000 cases and sustained transmission during 2025, Canada lost its measles elimination status in October. And the United States and Mexico could lose elimination certification later this year. To what extent are current outbreaks driven by changing immunization practices or attitudes towards vaccination? How might losing measles elimination status impact health security in North America and beyond? What will it take to stop the current outbreaks and re-ignite progress towards global measles elimination?

Listen to this broadcast from the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security with Natasha Crowcroft, Vice President, Infectious Diseases and Vaccination Programs, Public Health Agency of Canada; William Moss, Professor and Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Daniel Salas, Executive Manager, Comprehensive Immunization Special Program, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), regarding measles outbreaks and elimination in the North American context and the implications of sustained measles transmission for regional and global health security. Katherine E. Bliss, CSIS Senior Fellow and Director, Immunizations and Health Systems Resilience with the Global Health Policy Center, will moderate.