Measles in Canada: modelling outbreaks with variable vaccine coverage and interventions
BMC Infectious Diseases·
- DOI
- 10.1186/s12879-025-10564-8
- PMID
- 39972251
- PMCID
- PMC11841303
- OpenAlex
- W4407743113
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The work is positioned as a downstream tool that translates global measles activity into local Canadian outbreak projections of duration and size, with potential utility for informing public communication about measles-related risk.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The study explores how measles outbreaks following importation into Canada might unfold across varying vaccination coverage levels, community sizes, and public health interventions, using a stochastic modelling approach.
Study design
A stochastic Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) modelling study that compares simulated outbreak size and duration against reports of real-world measles outbreaks. The model is also released as a web-based 'shiny' application.
Population and setting
The setting is Canada, framed in the context of its long-standing measles elimination status and ongoing importation risk, with modelled communities including a small community scenario of size 1000.
Main findings
At or above 85% vaccination coverage, community-level outbreaks can be controlled with public health interventions; above 95% coverage, 99% of measles introductions do not lead to an outbreak. Below 85% coverage, modelled outbreaks in small communities range from a median size under 4 (at 80% coverage) to 186 (at 55%), broadly comparable to reported outbreaks, and most simulated outbreaks last under 60 days.
Public-health relevance
The work is positioned as a downstream tool that translates global measles activity into local Canadian outbreak projections of duration and size, with potential utility for informing public communication about measles-related risk.
Important limitations
Limitations are not explicitly described in the supplied abstract/metadata. This summary is therefore restricted to the supplied single-article abstract and bibliographic metadata and should not be treated as decision-grade evidence; consultation of the original paper is required for a fuller appraisal.
GIDS interpretation
In a GIDS-style discovery context, this article is findable via disease (Measles), country (Canada), and topic tags covering outbreak investigation, transmission dynamics, travel medicine, and vaccination. The abstract does not link the modelling outputs to any live surveillance signal, and no such connection should be inferred from the supplied evidence.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 12 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.