At least 171 measles cases have been confirmed in the U.S. so far this year, according to newly updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Cases have been confirmed in nine states, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
At least one state, South Carolina, has been facing a measles outbreak since early October, with the majority of cases in Spartanburg County, which borders North Carolina.
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At least 124 new measles cases have been reported in the state since last Friday, health officials announced earlier this week.
Utah also has had an ongoing outbreak since measles began spreading there in June last year. Measles cases in the state now surpass 200 as of Tuesday, 147 of those are in the southwest region of the state, but have spread further north, according to data from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.
An official at the Southwest Utah Department of Public Health confirmed to ABC News that cases in the southwest region and further north have been linked to the same measles virus that spread from Texas last year.
“Our outbreak is the same strain that was in the Texas outbreak,” David Heaton, public information officer at the Southwest Utah Department of Public Health, said.
Measles has been considered eliminated in the United States since 2000, but experts are growing increasingly concerned that it will become endemic again soon, meaning there’s been continuous spread for more than a year throughout the country.
“At this rate, our outbreak will be, you know, part of the United States outbreaks that that together may, we may lose that eradicated status for a while, just because of those numbers,” Heaton said. “That’s kind of a discouraging threshold that we’re getting closer to.”
Additionally, over the last few days, health departments in Georgia, Oregon and Virginia each reported their states’ first measles cases of 2026.
Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images – PHOTO: Signs point the way to measles testing in the parking lot of the Seminole Hospital District across from Wigwam Stadium, February 27, 2025 in Seminole, Texas.
Among the nationally confirmed cases, the CDC says about 95% are among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
Meanwhile, 2% of cases are among those who have received just one dose of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and 2% of cases are among those who received the recommended two doses, according to the CDC.
CDC data shows the majority of cases are among patients under age 19 and about 1% of all measles patients in the U.S. have been hospitalized.
It comes as the U.S. recorded its highest number of measles cases since 1992. Last year, the U.S. saw 2,242 cases, with illnesses reported in more than 40 states.
Nearly 50 outbreaks occurred last year nationally, compared to 16 in 2024, and just four in 2023, CDC data shows. Almost 90% of cases were associated with outbreaks.
At least three deaths were recorded in 2025, including two among unvaccinated school-aged children in Texas and one among an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico, marking the first U.S. deaths from measles in a decade.
The CDC currently recommends that people receive two doses of the MMR vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective against measles, the CDC says.
However, federal data shows vaccination rates have been lagging in recent years. During the 2024-2025 school year, 92.5% of kindergartners received the MMR vaccine, according to data. This is lower than the 92.7% seen in the previous school year and the 95.2% seen in the 2019-2020 school year, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
