Jul 7, 2025 - Health

Measles cases reach new high since being eliminated in U.S.

Tina Reed

A little boy with glasses gets a measles shot in his left arm. — Xerius Jackson, age 7, gets an MMR vaccine at a vaccine clinic put on by the Lubbock Public Health Department in March. Photo: Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images

There have been 1,267 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. this year, almost 4.5 times the total for all of last year and on track to pass the highest annual count since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why it matters: While the disease isn't consistently spreading due to immunization campaigns, there have been outbreaks well beyond West Texas, where low immunization rates and high school exemptions stoked spread of the highly contagious virus early this year.

Driving the news: There have been 27 outbreaks reported in the U.S. so far this year, accounting for 88% percent of the cases. In comparison, there were 16 outbreaks across the entire year in 2024 and 69% of cases were associated with those outbreaks.

There have been three confirmed deaths.
Measles cases have been confirmed in 38 states.
Of the 1,267 cases, 360 (28%) were in kids younger than 5 and 464 (37%) were in kids between the ages of 5 and 19 years old.
In 92% of the confirmed measles cases, the individuals were unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown.

While the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is safe and effective, vaccination coverage among kindergartners has been falling and is now below the herd immunity target of 95%, per the CDC.

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Measles cases reach new high since being eliminated in U.S.

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