U.S. Measles Cases Hit 35-Year High With Five Months Remaining

The United States has recorded more measles infections in 2026 than in any year since 1991, with five months still remaining in the year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.

The agency's latest tally stands at 2,318 confirmed cases, surpassing the 2,289 logged across all of 2025 — itself the worst annual total in more than three decades. Cases surged past 2,000 last month and have continued to rise into July. Taken together, the last two years have produced more infections than the entire span from 2000 through 2024 combined.

Large outbreaks have taken hold in South Carolina, Utah, and Arizona, where hundreds of residents have fallen ill. Utah's outbreak has been ongoing for more than a year, dating to June 2025 — a stretch that public health officials say may disqualify the United States from meeting the criteria for measles elimination as a sustained public health threat. That designation, first achieved in 2000, requires that no single outbreak persist beyond 12 months.

International health officials are scheduled to convene in November to determine whether the United States and Mexico should lose their measles-free designations. Scientists said the outcome is increasingly clear. "The assessment for elimination isn't until November, but that is a scheduling issue, basically," said Anne Schuchat, who led CDC's immunization and respiratory disease programs from 2006 to 2015.

Public health experts point to falling childhood vaccination rates as the driver of the surge. Coverage of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine among kindergartners slipped to 92.5 percent in the 2024-25 school year, well short of the 95 percent threshold considered necessary to prevent outbreaks from gaining a foothold. In some communities, rates have fallen even lower.

Researchers and state officials cautioned that official case figures almost certainly understate the true scope of the problem. Some people who contract measles never seek medical attention and go untested. Mathematical modeling of the Utah outbreak suggests the actual infection count could be three to four times higher than confirmed totals.

Close to 400 people have been hospitalized for measles across the United States over the past two years, and at least three have died.

Pediatric physicians in hard-hit states described caring for children suffering from labored breathing, high fevers, and severe rashes. Because unvaccinated children face elevated risks of complications such as meningitis or sepsis, doctors said they are frequently compelled to conduct additional painful diagnostic procedures on young patients.

The American Academy of Pediatrics called the record an "avoidable crisis that disproportionately hurts children," citing hospitalizations, missed schooling, and parents forced to leave work to care for sick children.

Former senior CDC officials said the rapid dismantling of public health infrastructure — including staffing and funding cuts to prevention and response programs — has left the country less capable of containing outbreaks than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a long history of questioning vaccine safety and effectiveness, has not announced any emergency vaccination drive in response to the outbreak.