The in progress measles epidemic has reached a new peak

The terrible year of America measles is far from over. Several states have reported more cases of preventible vaccination viral disease recently, while the country as a whole has reached a new record.

Health managers of Michigan, California and Illinois, have confirmed new cases of measles this week. According to centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2025 saw the greatest number of cases since the disease was locally eliminated from the country a quarter of a century ago. Although the biggest epidemics of this year have finished since the end, there remains a real chance of measles could again recover in the United States

New threats

Managers of the County of Orange, California and County Cook, Illinois, reported a new case of measles each week.

The Californian affair involved a toddler who had recently traveled at the national level, and officials informed people who could have been exposed to the child in a health care framework. However, no other exposure to the community is suspected because the family had been isolated during the most likely period of transmission.

The Illinois affair involved an adult who probably caught the measles of an infected person whom health officials had identified several weeks earlier. This is the third case reported in the county this year.

However, the greatest threat of measles comes from Minnesota. The Minnesota Ministry of Health reported 10 new cases this week, bringing the total of the State to 17 this year. Seven of the cases are linked to three previous cases, while the other three are not linked and linked to international travel, probably in areas where measles remains endemic. As is often the case, all new cases of Minnesota have occurred in people who are not vaccinated against measles.

Meanwhile, on September 30, there was a total of 1,544 confirmed measles cases in the United States so far this year, the CDC reported this week. 92% of these infections involved people who are not vaccinated or who have unknown vaccination status. The counting in 2025 is well above previous modern cases – 1,274 cases in 2019 – and has been most since 1992, which has seen more than 2,000 cases.

Good and bad news

On the positive side of things, the New Mexico officially declared the end of its large-scale epidemic at the end of last week. The state had documented 100 cases of measles dating from February 2025, the second largest epidemic of any state this year. The largest epidemic occurred in Texas, which saw 762 cases; The state declared its epidemic in mid-August.

However, these epidemics did not end without provoking their fair share of misery. About 200 children were hospitalized for measles this year in the United States, for example, while three died – the first American deaths were reported in a decade.

Measles can also have long -term health consequences. Studies have shown, for example, that measles can induce a form of “immune amnesia”, which means that people ‘immune systems lose their memory from other past infections.

These last cases also demonstrate that measles can easily trigger new clusters of disease at any time, especially in regions where the absorption of vaccines is relatively low. Only a handful of states in the United States currently have infantile vaccination rates for measles greater than 95%, the level at which the immunity of the herd can reliably prevent generalized epidemics. And even highly vaccinated states have communities where coverage is much lower than the average (the overall vaccination rate of Texas in 2023 and 2024 was just a little less than 95%, for example).

Unfortunately, while a majority of Americans still support vaccines and current vaccines, many leaders in the country do not seem to do so. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. minimized epidemics of the country’s measles and has regularly undermined vaccines since taking it as US Secretary for Health and Social Services this year, as did President Donald Trump.

Last week, the two men took the podium to approve the demystified link between vaccines and autism again. Trump also reiterated his support to separate the vaccine combined with measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) perfectly safe and efficient – a change that would undoubtedly lower vaccination rates for the three diseases.