March 2 (Reuters) – An April meeting of an international panel of experts scheduled to review the United States’ measles elimination status has been postponed until November, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.
The department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
A panel convened by the Pan American Health Organization had planned to meet in April to assess whether the ongoing spread of measles meant the U.S. should lose its elimination status.
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Countries receive that status when they have not had continuous measles transmission for more than a year.
But U.S. health officials asked the panel to delay the review until PAHO’s annual meeting in November as they needed more time to analyze measles data, the report said.
“At this time, PAHO can confirm that the assessment to review the United States’ measles elimination status has been rescheduled to November 2026, during the Commission’s regular annual meeting,” the organization told Reuters.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto, Kamal Choudhury in Bengaluru and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)
