US hits a scary mark for total number of measles cases — for the second year in a row

The number of U.S. measles cases surpassed the 2,000 mark this week for the second time in two years, federal data shows.

There have been 30 new incidents resulting in 2,030 confirmed cases so far this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. That’s inching closer to last year’s total of 2,288 cases, the agency noted.

Before 2025, America’s yearly measles cases had not surpassed 2,000 since 1992.

The highly infectious virus was largely considered eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 due to the preventative measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, but falling vaccination rates have helped the disease to spread again. This year has seen outbreaks in several states including South Carolina, Utah and Texas.

Two doses of the vaccine are 97 percent effective at preventing infection, the CDC says.

The new data “indicates that an increasing number of parents are either postponing or withholding their children from vaccination,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center told ABC News Friday, “and this is very concerning because it permits this virus back now into in the United States to continue to spread and obviously to cause illness in the children affected.”

He said the update is “very disappointing and very concerning.”

The majority of cases have been in children who are unvaccinated, including 424 under the age of five and 1,029 aged between 5 and 19.

While several big outbreaks have been responsible for the majority of these cases, measles is still spreading on a smaller scale in states around the U.S.

An outbreak in Pennsylvania has hit Central Pennsylvania, including 21 cases in Lancaster County, state health officials report. There’s also been a rise in cases in Virginia. More than 65 cases have been reported in the past month alone, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health. And, cases in Florida have been mounting — although the state’s health department data shows there’s been a week without new measles cases. There have been 154 cases in the Sunshine State so far this year.

South Carolina and Texas were able to squelch major outbreaks that started in 2025 with rising vaccination rates.

Utah’s outbreak, which has seen 675 cases this year, has slowed since earlier this year, too. But it’s still the state’s biggest in 40 years, state epidemiologist Leisha Nolen has said, according to the Utah News Dispatch.

Part of the recent spike in cases has to do with child vaccination rates.

“Vaccination rates need to be above about 95 percent for communities to achieve community immunity and limit the spread of measles. Yet, reporting shows that in the 2024-25 school year, about 11 percent of kindergartners in Utah had exemptions or were missing documentation to show they were vaccinated against measles,” the American Academy of Pediatrics explained.

Measles infections can lead to dangerous complications, such as pneumonia or brain swelling known as encephalitis.

Children, who have weaker immune systems, are more vulnerable to measles.

For children who are immunocompromised, infection can be deadly.

“If they catch measles, it’s really, truly life-threatening,” Dr. Trahern Jones, a pediatric infectious disease doctor in Salt Lake City, told The New York Times last week.. “I would say it’s hazardous being an immunocompromised person in Utah right now.”