U.S. Measles Cases Surge in Early 2025

A measles outbreak in Texas has caused U.S. cases of the disease to rise to at least 143 less than two months into the year. For comparison, in 2024, the country only registered 285 for the full year. CDC numbers show that as of last Friday, 93 measles cases were registered in eight U.S. states and cities. Since then, cases in the Texas outbreak have risen by at least 50, while those in an outbreak in New Mexico remained at nine, upping the figure to 143 at least. On Wednesday, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine critic, said the Texas outbreak had claimed two lives. 101 of the 124 cases were in minors and one victim was an unvaccinated child. Details of a second victim could not be confirmed. No one in the United States has died of measles in almost 10 years. The outbreak is believed to have started in a Mennonite community where vaccination rates are low. Vaccination rates in Texas overall most recently stood at 94.2 percent, while the U.S. average was 92.7 percent - both below the herd immunity threshold of 95 percent.

With nearly 1,300 cases in 2019, measles hit a 27-year high in the U.S. that year. In the year 2000, the disease had been declared eradicated in the United States but the country could now go on to lose that status again because of the string of outbreaks in recent years. 73 percent of the 2019 cases were linked to outbreaks in New York where different communities, among them Orthodox Jews, are often unvaccinated. Other U.S. communities where vaccination rates are falling also experienced outbreaks in 2019. In 2014, measles numbers spiked as well, if not as bad. Back then, an Amish missionary who visited the Philippines caused nearly half of the registered cases in a mostly unvaccinated Amish community in Ohio. Another significant outbreak at Disneyland in California that same year pushed the number of cases up even more.

Globally, measles declined between 2000 and 2023, but most recently, case numbers have been increasing again. While in the year 2000, there had been around 37 million estimated measles cases and around 800,000 deaths around the world, these number were down to just 7 million cases and 90,000 deaths in 2016. However, they then rose again to an estimate of 10.3 million cases and more than 107,000 deaths in 2023. The UN announced the War on Measles in 2001, with huge support from the U.S. federal government, the American Red Cross and donors like Ted Turner and Bill and Melinda Gates. The funding went mostly towards providing training, resources, and logistic planning needed to administer the two-part vaccine that protects against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). Most recently, vaccination rates have also been falling around the world due to vaccine scepticims and access issues during the Covid-19 pandemic, causing an uptick in measles deaths.

The WHO determined that the biggest factor for the increase in measles cases worldwide was gaps in vaccination coverage mainly caused by poverty. The medical infrastructure in many countries is not built up enough to vaccinate children year after year to prevent the virus. Furthermore, anti-vaccine activists, false rumors distrust in medical companies have created an atmosphere of distrust around the vaccine in the U.S. and globally.