Measles resurgence puts the U.S. at risk of losing its ‘elimination’ status
One year ago this week, a case of measles was recorded in Gaines County, Texas.
This was the beginning of an epidemic that killed two children and sickened at least 760 people. Since then, thousands more people in the United States have contracted measles.
In April, the Pan American Health Organization, an arm of the World Health Organization, will determine whether the same strain of the virus first recorded in West Texas on Jan. 20, 2025, has been transmitted continuously in the 12 months since then.
If this happens, the United States will officially lose its measles elimination status, which the organization granted in 2000.
Dr. D., an infectious disease specialist and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley. Meeting those requirements “took decades of really hard work,” John Swartzberg said. “Losing this privilege is a shame for the United States. This is another nail in the coffin for the credibility of this country.”
In public health terms, elimination means that a disease has become rare enough and immunity to it has become widespread enough that once a case or two emerges, local transmission declines rapidly.
Scientists from the US Centers for Disease Control examine virus sequences Research is being done from multiple sites in the U.S. to determine whether newer measles cases stem from the original outbreak or have emerged elsewhere; It’s a distinction that could affect whether the United States retains its status.
Whatever the international committee’s final decision, it is clear that there is a reemergence of a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease that has been largely kept under control for a quarter of a century.
There were 4,485 confirmed measles cases In the United States between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control. There were 2,242 cases in 2025 alone; this was the highest annual number of cases since the early 1990s.
“Measles is incredibly contagious and is the first thing that comes when you take your foot off the gas in terms of trying to keep vaccine levels up.” said Dr. Adam RatnerNew York-based pediatric infectious disease specialist and author of “Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health.”
“It didn’t have to turn out this way,” he said. “Not having clear messages from HHS does us no good.”
In March, following the first child death from measles in the United States in more than a decade, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published a statement He noted the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing the spread of measles, but stopped short of directly recommending parents vaccinate their children.
A month later, he posted the following on X: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.” angered many people from anti-vaccination supporters.
But as the year progressed, Kennedy and the institutions he ran disrupted the country’s vaccine distribution system by sharing misleading and inaccurate information about vaccines with the public.
Kennedy dismissed members of the key vaccine advisory committee at the CDC and replaced them all With carefully selected individuals, many of whom openly criticize vaccines or spread medical misinformation.
Late last year the CDC changed the website There are false statements about vaccines and autism, linking vaccines to neurodevelopmental disorders. CDC earlier this month suddenly stopped The number of diseases for which children should be vaccinated increased from 17 to 11.
Although the CDC has not officially changed its MMR vaccine recommendations, the agency’s conflicting actions and confusing statements have further reduced vaccination rates, experts said.
“These messages from the CDC are crazy. It’s hard for pediatricians. It’s hard for parents,” Ratner said. “Nothing has changed about how safe the MMR vaccines are or how well they work. That’s the whole message. And I’m very worried that this is an acceleration, not a slowdown.”
Vaccination rates in the United States were already falling before Kennedy’s appointment to Health and Human Services. Only 10 US states Including California, meets the 95% vaccination threshold needed to prevent community transmission of measles.
forty-five states confirmed cases of measles reported last year, and at least nine states recorded cases in January alone.
Dr. D., professor at Chapman University School of Pharmacy and president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. “If you go to cdc.gov, you’d expect to see a huge banner that says, ‘Measles outbreak, get vaccinated now,'” Jeff Goad said. “And it’s not there.”
The Pan American Health Organization will review data from the United States and Mexico on April 13 to determine whether these two countries will suffer the same fate as Canada, which lost its measles elimination status in November.
“Whether we will officially lose qualifying status is an academic exercise at this point,” said Mathew Kiang, an assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University. “The reality is that without concentrated efforts to increase vaccination, we will continue to have these long, protracted outbreaks across the United States. We are witnessing the consequences of a years-long effort to dismantle the vaccine infrastructure in the United States, accelerated by the current administration.”
