SUMMARYThe Pan American Health Organization has revoked the United States’ measles-elimination status after finding sustained transmission for more than a year, ending a 26-year run. The United States has recorded about 7,500 measles infections and 13 deaths since 2025, amid declining immunization rates and increased vaccine hesitancy. Public health experts warned the country is likely to face continued large outbreaks and preventable illness.
Reuters reports:
The Pan American Health Organization has revoked the United States' measles-elimination status, ending a 26-year run after determining the country failed to halt continuous transmission of the highly contagious virus for more than a year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday...
The reported decision by the Americas branch of the World Health Organization comes as the US battles the highest number of measles cases it has seen in more than three decades. Some 7,500 people in the US have been infected with measles and 13 have died since 2025. That period coincides with falling immunization rates and rising vaccine hesitancy under US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has for years spread doubts, without scientific evidence, about the safety of measles vaccines... Canada, Spain and the UK recently lost measles-elimination status after review by WHO experts....
"It is a fully preventable disease. It is unconscionable that we have this amount of measles," said Noel Brewer, a public health professor at the University of North Carolina... William Moss, an epidemiology professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said loss of measles elimination was a hit to the United States' reputation as a public health powerhouse... For the average American, he added, it means that the United States will continue to have large outbreaks, putting people at risk of disease, hospitalization and death.