ATLANTA — Measles cases in the United States have passed 5,000 in a single year for the first time since 1991, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the country faces a review next week of the measles free status it has held since 2000.
The CDC counted 5,182 confirmed cases as of November 5, spread across 45 states and Washington, D.C., with 330 new infections in the latest week alone. The total is more than double the 2,289 cases recorded in all of 2025. Most cases, 4,993 of them, were linked to outbreaks, and 43 outbreaks have been reported this year. Children and teenagers account for nearly 60 percent of confirmed cases, according to the agency’s figures reported by Reuters and USA Today.
Deaths are counted differently by federal and state officials, and the gap has become part of the story. The CDC count stands at four deaths for 2026, while state health authorities have reported at least eight deaths linked to the disease, including very young children. Pennsylvania, which has the largest outbreak with more than 1,400 cases, counts any death within 30 days of symptoms as measles associated unless it is clearly unrelated, and its state total is six deaths.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, which means the virus no longer spread on its own inside the country year round. That status is now at risk. The Pan American Health Organization is set to review American transmission data on November 10, and if it finds that one strain of the virus has circulated without a break for 12 months, the status is lost.
Health officials link the scale of the return to falling vaccination. Coverage among kindergarten children fell from 95.2 percent in the 2019 to 2020 school year to 92.4 percent in 2025 to 2026, below the level doctors say is needed to stop the virus spreading in a community. Before the vaccine arrived in 1963, measles killed an estimated 400 to 500 people a year in the United States, according to the CDC.
Why it matters goes beyond one disease. Measles is often the first illness to return when routine childhood vaccination slips, because it spreads so easily. Doctors treat its return as an early warning for other preventable diseases, and hospitals in outbreak areas have treated 562 patients this year, about 11 percent of confirmed cases.
What happens next is the November 10 review, and the work of state health departments through the winter, when indoor gatherings help the virus spread. Families who are unsure about their children’s vaccination records can check them with their doctor or local health department, and officials say two doses of the measles vaccine remain highly effective at preventing the disease.
Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measles data, with reporting by Reuters and USA Today.
