As
measles
cases continue to rise in
Ontario
and Alberta, there are signs that support for mandatory childhood vaccination is rebounding, although hesitancy among parents is also rising.
A new poll of almost 1,700 Canadians suggests support for mandatory childhood immunization has resurged across Canada, with nearly 70 per cent saying they should be mandatory. That is already the case in Ontario, with exemptions for medical and philosophical reasons, but not in all provinces. That number is up from 55 per cent a year ago.
The apparently strengthening support for mandatory childhood immunization could reflect the historic measles outbreaks this year — the largest since the
highly infectious disease
was considered eliminated in Canada in 1998. Canada now risks losing its elimination status.
But the Angus Reid poll also suggests vaccine hesitancy and opposition to childhood vaccination is on the rise among parents of children under 18 — from 16 per cent a decade ago to 22 per cent in the latest poll. The poll also found that a higher rate of people who voted Conservative in the April election feel that “measles isn’t as bad as people think it is”.
The findings suggest that closing vaccination gaps to ensure herd immunity (about 95 per cent for measles) will be a complex task. There will likely continue to be geographic pockets where vaccination rates are low, in addition to a continuing gap among people who missed doses or for whom access to primary care is difficult.
On Thursday, Public Health Ontario reported that the measles outbreak in the province had grown by 93 cases in the past week, bringing the total since last fall to 1,888 cases. There have also been 87 cases in Ontario since the beginning of the year that were not linked to the outbreak. As of May 17, there had been 509 measles cases in Alberta this year, with fewer than 100 in other provinces, totalling more than 2,500 cases across the country since the start of 2025.
In the large Ontario outbreak, the majority of cases have been among infants, children and youth who were unvaccinated. Most cases have been centred in southwestern Ontario, but the outbreak has spread across much of the province, including Eastern Ontario. Ottawa Public Health reported
two travel-related measles cases
earlier, but has not reported any cases directly related to the outbreak.
In the midst of the outbreak, getting an accurate picture of vaccination coverage has been a challenge.
Despite mandatory childhood vaccination in Ontario under the Immunization of School Pupils Act, vaccination rates dropped during the pandemic. Public health units, including in Ottawa, have been working to close the gap with additional vaccination clinics, public messaging and school surveillance. But the absence of real-time data on vaccination rates makes it difficult to know how big the gap is.
Ottawa Public Health is hoping to get a more accurate picture of vaccination coverage in the city with this year’s school surveillance effort. This is the first school year since the pandemic in which Ottawa Public Health will order suspensions of students whose vaccination records are not up to date in an effort to get an accurate picture of who is and is not vaccinated and encourage families to make sure their children’s records are up to date.
In Ottawa, measles vaccination rates among seven year olds were already below national coverage goals of 95 per cent in the 2018-19 school year — prior to the pandemic. During the pandemic, Ottawa Public Health says 15,000 doses of measles were missed.
Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Trevor Arnason has said there are no early indications that vaccination rates among younger children in the city have dropped dramatically, though final numbers are not in.
A Canadian Journal of Public Health article published in October 2024 found there had been a significant drop in vaccination rates among Canadian seven year olds. The article reported approximately 76 per cent of seven-year-olds were vaccinated against measles in 2023, down from just over 86 per cent in 2019.
