Three months into 2025, the United States has surpassed the total number of measles cases it had in all of last year.
The high number of cases is driven by a multistate outbreak that has reached nearly 300 cases. As of Friday, Texas has reported 259 cases this year, New Mexico has tallied 35 cases and Oklahoma reported two. Experts say this is probably a severe undercount.
According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 285 measles cases were reported in the US in 2024. A CNN tally suggests that at least 320 cases have been reported so far in 2025, including 296 associated with the multistate outbreak.
Two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine are 97% effective against measles.
“As I’m seeing this outbreak unfold, it brings me back to the year 2000 when the United States declared that measles was eradicated from our country,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
“The split screen of what’s happening now and the fact that it was deemed to be eradicated 25 years ago, I think highlights the deterioration of proven preventative measures,” he said. “And the current outbreak might be larger than we currently realize.”
In the years since measles was declared eliminated in the US, there have been an average of about 179 cases reported each year. There have been an average of about eight outbreaks per year – ranging from one to 25 annually – and most years at least 60% of all reported cases have been tied to outbreaks. But the worst outbreaks each year typically stay under 50 cases.
2025 is only the fifth year since 2000 that an outbreak has led to more than 100 cases and only the third year that an outbreak has led to more than 200 cases. The others were 2014, when there was an outbreak tied to Disneyland, and 2019, when a nearly year-long outbreak in New York came within weeks of ending elimination status in the US.
In the current outbreak, 36 patients have been hospitalized, six more than previously reported. Ninety-one cases are among children ages 0 to 4 and 125 are among people ages 5 to 17. In Texas, two hundred and fifty-seven cases — all but two — are in people who are unvaccinated or with unknown vaccination status. In New Mexico, 33 of 35 cases are in those who were unvaccinated or with unknown vaccination status.
Measles cases have been identified in 11 Texas counties and two New Mexico counties. In Texas, more than two-thirds of the cases are in Gaines County, where the outbreak was first identified. In New Mexico, most cases are in Lea County, which borders Gaines County.
Last month, Texas announced the outbreak’s first death: a school-age child who was not vaccinated and had no underlying conditions. Health officials in New Mexico said last week that they are investigating the cause of death of an unvaccinated person who tested positive for measles. The Lea County resident had not sought out health care.
European region sees highest number of measles cases in 25 years, WHO says
Measles cases in the European region surged last year to reach their highest levels since 1997, the World Health Organization and the UN’s children agency, UNICEF, said Thursday.
An analysis by WHO and UNICEF found the number of measles cases reported in the European region reached 127,352 in 2024, double the reported number from the previous year.
Children younger than 5 accounted for 40% of those who contracted measles in the region, it said, adding that half a million children missed their first dose of the measles vaccine in 2023.
“Measles is back, and it’s a wake-up call. Without high vaccination rates, there is no health security,” Dr. Hans P. Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said in a statement.
The rise comes after a “backsliding in immunization coverage during the pandemic,” the report said. Vaccination rates in numerous countries have yet to return to pre-Covid levels, increasing the risk of further outbreaks, it warned.
The European region accounted for a third of all measles cases globally in 2024, the report said. Immunization coverage for most of the region, it added, has fallen “below the recommended level for herd immunity, which is a vaccination rate of 95% or higher.”
The situation is acute in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Romania, where, the report says, less than 80% of eligible children were vaccinated against measles in 2023.
It stresses vaccination remains the “best line of defense against the virus,” saying that a vaccinated person exposed to measles has at least a 97% chance of not contracting it.