How a wedding in Thailand lost the Americas its measles-free status

The Americas region, which comprises 35 countries, has officially lost its measles-free status.1It comes after a year that has seen 12 593 cases and 28 deaths from measles in the region. When Canada officially lost its measles-free status on 10 November it meant the whole Americas region did too.Patient zero, as identified by the Globe and Mail newspaper, was a Canadian who was living in Thailand when measles broke out there in 2024.2 In October that year she attended a wedding in the province of New Brunswick where she was later admitted to hospital with severe illness and tested positive for measles.She had never been vaccinated for measles, nor had several of the other wedding guests. From there they brought the virus to communities across Canada where vaccination rates were low. Mennonite and other Anabaptist communities were mostly affected, but experts say other communities with similarly low vaccination rates are…