There are already more US measles cases this year than in all of 2025

The number of measles cases in the U.S. has surpassed the record-breaking tally for all of 2025, with five more months of 2026 still to come. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logged 2,318 cases of measles as of Thursday, according to an agency update on Friday. The nation had 2,289 cases in 2025, the worst year for measles in more than three decades. Now, 2026 has easily become the U.S.'s worst year for measles since 1991, as major outbreaks in South Carolina, Utah and Arizona have sickened hundreds and smaller clusters of cases sparked in other states. In November, international health officials will meet to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles-free status. The U.S. eliminated local measles spread in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, which have fallen in recent years to below the 95% coverage needed to prevent outbreaks. National vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella — which dropped to 92.5% among kindergartners in the 2024-25 school year, from 95.2% in 2019-20 — obscure even lower rates in certain communities. "Not vaccinating your kid is like saying, 'I don't want my car to have brakes,'" said Dr. Mark Roberts, a professor of health policy at the University of Pittsburgh. "Because it's other people that you can hit. It's not just you in your car. It's other people." "What we're able to count and report is almost always an underestimate of what actually occurred, because it relies on people being willing to be able to get tested, to share information with healthcare providers and with public health," said Dr. Varun Shetty, chief epidemiologist for the state of Texas.