It’s only July, but the United States has already recorded 2,295 measles cases this year, a number not seen since 1991, according to new data published on the Johns Hopkins University measles tracker. 

In 1991, the United States tracked 2,126 measles cases after recording 9,643 measles cases the prior year. A total of 2,289 confirmed measles cases were recorded in all of 2025, at least 700 of them associated with a large West Texas outbreak that killed two children. In October 2025, a massive measles outbreak began in South Carolina and continued until April of this year. That outbreak involved 997 confirmed cases and at least 21 hospitalizations.

The sustained transmission reported in the United States in the last two years puts the country’s elimination status in jeopardy per the Pan American Health Organization and is a sign that many communities have vaccination rates much lower than the 95% coverage needed for herd immunity. 

Reaching this milestone is particularly striking because we are only in July.

“Reaching this milestone is particularly striking because we are only in July, and measles cases are still being reported throughout the country, with outbreaks in Virginia and Pennsylvania,” said William Moss, MD, MPH, a pediatric infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a statement to the press. “We urgently need to address the reasons for under-vaccination in some of our communities, particularly the disinformation that leads to mistrust of measles vaccines.” 

While measles can be deadly, no one has died in the United States so far this year from the virus. But measles can cause a host of other medical maladies. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 20% of unvaccinated Americans who get measles is hospitalized, with 1 in 20 developing pneumonia. 

Ten percent of all US case-patients ages 5 and under this year have required hospitalization, as have 10% of those 20 years and older. 

Last week, Utah officials published new data in a Public Health Alerts report describing outcomes among measles patients. The state has been battling an outbreak for 12 months involving 711 cases in the past 12 months, 514 of them in 2026 alone. 

Only about 8% of patients in the current outbreak have been hospitalized, and of those, 90% were unvaccinated. Three of the five hospitalized patients who were vaccinated had "severe immunocompromising conditions.”

About 75% of hospitalized patients required intravenous infusions, and more than 60% needed supplemental oxygen, with 29% developing measles pneumonia. No cases of measles encephalitis, or brain swelling, were reported. 

The data echoes a report of similar findings from South Carolina published last week, which showed no deaths but two cases of measles encephalitis among 81 patients, of whom 13 were hospitalized.