The US might lose its longstanding ‘measles elimination’ status

More than 1,600 cases and three deaths due to measles infections so far this year – mostly in unvaccinated Americans

America may be on track to losing its longstanding measles “elimination status,” held by the United States since 2000.

The status indicates that there has not been continuous spread of the infectious disease for more than a year – but vaccine hesitancy and other factors have sent infections rocketing to their highest levels in 25 years.

There have been 1,648 cases and three deaths tied to the virus this year so far, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

And if recent cases, reported in South Carolina or Utah, are tied back to a deadly West Texas outbreak that started in January and health authorities can’t bring the areas under control before the new year, the country’s elimination status is at risk.

In South Carolina, the outbreak fueled by exposures at Spartanburg County elementary schools has grown to 37 cases, including many unvaccinated students. Utah has seen 64 cases largely around the Southwest, 61 of whom were unvaccinated.

A one-year-old boy is held by his mother while receiving a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine at a clinic in West Texas last March. Although the West Texas outbreak has ended, other areas have continued to see cases surge (Getty Images)

Exposure to measles without being vaccinated can prove fatal. Two young children died in the Texas outbreak earlier this year. Measles may also lead to pneumonia, ear infections and brain swelling, as well as fever and a reddish-pink rash.

The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is 97 percent effective against infection. That’s how the U.S. reached its elimination status initially.

However, child vaccination rates have fallen across the U.S. since before the pandemic, with fewer than 92.5 percent of kindergarteners getting a measles shot for this 2024-2025 school year. Doctors say falling rates are tied to increasing vaccine hesitancy and the spread of misinformation about vaccine safety.

“Even one child dying from measles is one too many,” American Academy of Pediatrics President, Dr. Susan Kressly, wrote in an April letter to Congressional leaders. “What makes these deaths so tragic is that immunization could have prevented these deaths.”

A person walks past a sign at a Texas health center where the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is being administered last February. An outbreak in West Texas infected more than 760 people (AFP via Getty Images)

It’s not only infections in the U.S. that Americans may need to worry about.

Canada could also cost the Americas its elimination status this week, following an outbreak of more than 5,100 measles cases and two infant deaths since October 2024. The outbreak started at a wedding in eastern Canada and has since spread across nine of its 10 provinces.

“It’s tremendously disappointing,” Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta, told STAT News. “I never in my life thought I’d see a massive measles outbreak in Canada. Most of my career in [infectious diseases], there’s been 10 cases a year or less.”