Measles deaths in US reach six this year amid surge in infections

Federal health authorities have recorded six fatalities linked to measles across the United States in 2026, marking a sharp increase during the nation's most substantial surge of the illness in decades.

Data published on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website on Thursday shows that the fatal cases recorded so far this year have doubled the total documented in 2025. The United States is currently navigating its largest measles resurgence since 1991, with tracking data from the Johns Hopkins University International Vaccine Access Center indicating that more than 5,400 infections have emerged across the country.

Measles was formally declared eliminated within the United States in 2000, but ongoing transmission in nearly every state is putting that designation in jeopardy. The federal government faces the possibility of officially losing its elimination status, which would align the country with places such as Canada and parts of Europe and Asia where the virus previously disappeared before re-emerging.

While the CDC's published national total stands at six deaths, the agency has not specified which states those cases occurred in. Reports from state health authorities point to higher local counts. In Pennsylvania, which has borne the brunt of the current surge, state officials have confirmed six fatalities tied to the disease. Additional deaths have been reported elsewhere, including an infant in Wisconsin and a child in New York around election day, marking New York's first known measles fatality in more than three decades.

Discrepancies between national and local data follow revisions to how federal mortality figures are tracked under US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Starting on September 4, the CDC adjusted its methodology to rely on the National Center for Health Statistics to assess mortality patterns.

The shift occurred shortly after media reports indicated that Kennedy had claimed, without providing supporting evidence, that two Pennsylvania fatalities might not have stemmed from measles. According to reporting by Reuters, Kennedy had asked CDC Director Erica Schwartz to exclude those instances from federal records. The agency revised its fatality tracking method on the day following that report.

Medical authorities emphasize that the disease is largely preventable through immunization. Two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine provide roughly 97 percent protection against the highly transmissible pathogen.