America has already recorded 2 295 measles cases this year, a number not seen since 1991, according to new data published on the Johns Hopkins University measles tracker, reports CIDRAP News.
In 1991, the United States tracked 2 126 measles cases after recording 9 643 the previous year. A total of 2 289 confirmed cases were recorded in all of 2025, at least 700 of them associated with a large West Texas outbreak that killed two children.
In October 2025, a massive measles outbreak began in South Carolina and continued until April this year. That outbreak involved 997 confirmed cases and at least 21 hospitalisations.
The sustained transmission reported in the US in the past two years puts the country’s elimination status in jeopardy per the Pan American Health Organisation and is a sign that many communities have vaccination rates much lower than the 95% coverage needed for herd immunity.
“Reaching this milestone is particularly striking because we are only in July, and measles cases are still being reported throughout the country, with outbreaks in Virginia and Pennsylvania,” said William Moss, MD, MPH, last week, a paediatric infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“We urgently need to address the reasons for under-vaccination in some of our communities, particularly the disinformation that leads to mistrust of measles vaccines.”
Utah shares medical outcomes
While measles can be deadly, no one has died in the US so far this year from the virus. But measles can cause a host of other medical maladies. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, about 20% of unvaccinated Americans who get measles are hospitalised, with one in 20 developing pneumonia.
At least 10% of all US case-patients aged five and under this year have had to be admitted to hospital, as have 10% of those 20 and older.
Last week, Utah officials published new data in a Public Health Alerts report describing outcomes among measles patients. The state has been battling an outbreak for 12 months, with 711 cases in the past year, 514 of them in 2026 alone.
Only about 8% of patients in the current outbreak have been hospitalised, and of those, 90% were unvaccinated. Three of the five patients admitted to hospital and who were vaccinated had "severe immunocompromising conditions”.
About 75% of hospitalised patients required intravenous infusions, and more than 60% needed supplemental oxygen, with 29% developing measles pneumonia. No cases of measles encephalitis, or brain swelling, were reported.
The data echo a report of similar findings from South Carolina published last week, which showed no deaths but two cases of measles encephalitis among 81 patients, of whom 13 were hospitalised.
CIDRAP News article – Measles cases reach 35-year high in US (Open access)
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