Canada has formally lost its measles elimination status, the country’s public health agency announced Monday, meaning all of the Americas have lost that status as well.

The decision, which was widely expected, comes after a meeting last week where an expert committee of the Pan American Health Organization determined that a large measles outbreak that began in Canada in October 2024 was still ongoing, more than 12 months after it started.

Canada’s loss of measles elimination status has reverberations for the Americas, the only region of the WHO that has ever achieved measles-elimination status. When even one country in a region loses measles-elimination status, the entire region loses it.

“This loss represents a setback of course. But it is also reversible,” Jarbas Barbosa, director of PAHO, the regional office for the Americas of the World Health Organization, said at a news conference Monday confirming the decision.