CDC counts six measles deaths this year as US nears losing elimination status

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a figure of six measles-related deaths in the US this year on its website Thursday, twice the number recorded in 2025. The update lands as the country rides its largest measles outbreak since 1991, with more than 5,400 cases logged nationwide by the Johns Hopkins University International Vaccine Access Center tracker.

Pennsylvania has taken the hardest hit, with state officials confirming six measles-associated deaths this year. A child died in New York on election day, and days later an infant died in Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin department of health services. New York's case was its first known measles-related fatality in more than three decades. The CDC did not say which states made up its national count.

The gap between state and federal numbers traces back to a switch in how the agency tracks deaths. Under health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., the CDC moved to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a method it described in a note posted 4 September as a way to follow mortality trends over time. Kennedy had argued without evidence that two Pennsylvania deaths may not have been caused by measles, and asked CDC director Erica Schwartz not to include them in the official tally, according to Reuters. The CDC changed its data source the day after that report ran.

Measles is preventable with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which gives roughly 97% protection after two doses. The US was declared free of measles in 2000, and it could lose that elimination status this week — a shift that would put it alongside Canada and several European and Asian countries where the virus returned after being stamped out. The designation's fate shapes how Kennedy's tenure on vaccine policy is remembered.