US poised to lose its ‘measles elimination status’ after more than 25 years

The number of confirmed measles cases across the U.S. this year has soared to 5,412 as of Nov. 12, more than double the 2,289 cases through all of 2025, according to the latest release of data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The trend is pushing the nation to the brink of losing its official “measles elimination status” after more than 25 years. “It’s pretty clear we’re hitting one grim milestone after the other,” Dr. Susan Kansagra, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, a group representing local health officials, told Stateline. “It’s really, really just a hard time to see something that we know has been eliminated in the past, and to see this rapid growth that we have seen over these last two years.” The U.S. launched a national campaign to eliminate measles in the 1960s, around the time the first official measles vaccine was licensed to the public.

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