Miami.- The United States recorded 2,566 cases of measles and 38 outbreaks of the disease so far in 2026, which already implies the highest number of infections since 1991 with a quarter of the year still remaining, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this Friday.
The figure represents nearly 250 more infections than the previous report on July 24, when the CDC reported 2,318 cases, which already exceeds the 2,289 for all of 2025 and implies a second consecutive annual record since the disease was declared eradicated in 2000 in the United States, where vaccination rates have fallen.
The agency reported 38 new outbreaks of the disease in 2026, which occurs when there are at least three related infections, while there were 48 throughout all of last year.
93% of this year’s cases have occurred in unvaccinated individuals, and two out of three, 67%, have been reported in children and young people aged 0 to 19, the federal agency’s report detailed.
Despite the higher number of patients, in 2026 there are no confirmed deaths from measles in the United States, unlike the three deaths recorded last year.
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The disease has been recorded in 47 U.S. states or territories, where the states with the most cases this year are South Carolina (670), Utah (526), Pennsylvania (280), Texas (190), Virginia (176), Florida (141), and Arizona (109).
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The record occurs amidst a drop in vaccination rates among preschool-level children, which fell from 95.2% in the 2019-2020 school year to 92.5% in the 2024-2025 school year, leaving 286,000 students “at risk,” the report added.
Herd immunity requires that more than 95% of people in a community be vaccinated, a level reached only by Alabama, California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia, according to data from the federal agency.
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This occurs amidst policies questioning vaccines implemented by President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order on Monday that reduces from 18 to 11 the diseases against which the federal government recommends vaccinating all children and establishes new categories for other immunizations.
The measure, promoted together with the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., leaves vaccines against the flu, COVID-19, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, and meningitis under risk criteria or shared decision-making between parents and doctors, while ordering a review of the federal childhood vaccination schedule.
