US Measles Cases In 2026 Highest In 35 Years

The number of measles cases this year has become the highest since 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on July 24.

Forty-five states have confirmed 2,318 cases through July 23, the CDC said this week.

That’s up from 2,289 cases in 2025 and the highest since 1991, when 9,643 cases were recorded.

Outbreaks are ongoing in central Virginia and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, some doctors said the jump in cases stems from lower numbers of people receiving vaccines against measles.

“High vaccination coverage has protected even the un- and undervaccinated because of herd protection, keeping measles at bay for the past few decades,” Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a statement. “But in communities with pockets of susceptible individuals across a broad age range, measles has been able to take hold, infecting those who are susceptible and spreading rapidly.”

“Measles vaccines are extremely safe and effective,” said Moss, whose center helps build “knowledge and support for the value of vaccines,” according to its website, and partners with vaccine manufacturers.

“Getting you or your child vaccinated is the best way to protect against disease.”

The measles vaccination rate among kindergartners in 2024 and 2025 was 92.5 percent, down from 95 percent in 2019 and 2020. Rates for some states that have seen outbreaks in 2026, such as South Carolina, are less than 90 percent.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said during a hearing this week that the high number of measles cases was “due to deliberate attempts to undermine faith in traditional public health measures by those who know nothing but push their ignorance as fact.”

Of the patients this year, 93 percent either were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, according to the CDC. The agency has not responded to requests for separate percentages for the categories.

Another 3 percent had received one dose of a measles vaccine, and another 4 percent had received two doses.

About half of the cases occurred among people aged 5 to 19, and another 31 percent were in adults aged 20 and older.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email that Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. “has been clear that vaccination remains the most effective way to prevent measles infection” and that the CDC continues to recommend two doses of a measles vaccine.

“Under the Secretary’s leadership, HHS has mounted an aggressive outbreak response, providing more than $8.5 million to states and local partners, expanding technical assistance, and surging CDC personnel and resources to support containment efforts where needed most,” the spokesperson said.

“Currently, U.S. measles incidence remains below that of several peer countries. As of July, Canada’s measles incidence was 3.9 times higher than the U.S., Mexico’s was 13.8 times higher, and the United Kingdom’s was 1.9 times higher,” the spokesperson said. “HHS focused its response where it can have the greatest impact: rapidly supporting affected communities, strengthening state and local response efforts, and communicating the ways in which measles transmission can be slowed, including through MMR vaccination, and ways that measles can be treated.”

Seven percent of the patients have been hospitalized. No deaths have been recorded.