The United States earned measles elimination status in the year 2000 — a landmark achievement built on decades of routine childhood vaccination that reduced an annual disease burden of hundreds of thousands of cases to fewer than 100 in most years. As of this week, that status is now facing its most serious formal challenge since it was granted.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 2,134 measles cases across 41 jurisdictions in 2026 alone — and the year is only half over. The full-year 2025 record of 2,288 cases, itself the highest total since 1991, is now within reach before summer ends.
