US Measles Outbreak Blows Past Last Year's Record, Tops 4,400 Cases
The CDC's latest weekly count already roughly doubles 2025's modern-era record, with federal and Pennsylvania officials disagreeing over how many patients have died.
The United States' measles outbreak has blown past last year's record total, with the CDC's most recent weekly count showing 4,410 confirmed cases across 45 states and the District of Columbia — nearly double the 2,289 cases recorded in all of 2025, which itself had been the highest US total since 1991.
Of this year's cases, the CDC reports 451 hospitalizations, a roughly 10% hospitalization rate. Federal data shows children and teenagers between 5 and 19 years old make up the largest share of cases, at 42%, with adults 20 and older close behind. In roughly 95% of this year's cases, the infected person was unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown.
A death toll in dispute
The outbreak's geographic center has been Pennsylvania, where Lancaster County alone has logged 391 cases, followed by Mifflin and Chester counties. But the state and the federal government don't agree on how many people have died. The CDC has confirmed two measles-related deaths nationally this year, while Pennsylvania's own health department has reported five deaths tied to the outbreak within the state alone — a discrepancy state officials say reflects differences in how cases are classified and confirmed. The first two Pennsylvania deaths, announced in August, both involved unvaccinated residents.
A DISEASE DECLARED ELIMINATED IN 2000 IS NOW SPREADING FASTER THAN ANY YEAR SINCE.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, meaning the virus no longer circulated continuously here, though travel-linked cases have periodically sparked local outbreaks since. Public health officials attribute this year's surge to falling childhood vaccination rates in pockets of the country, which have let the highly contagious virus take hold and spread through under-vaccinated communities once introduced.
Beyond Pennsylvania, outbreaks have also pushed case counts into the hundreds in states including Utah and South Carolina. The CDC updates its national measles count weekly, and officials have not signaled the outbreak is nearing containment, meaning the record-breaking total is likely to keep climbing into the winter.