The United States has stopped appearing as a “measles-free” country this Saturday, according to a decision by the Pan American Health Organization, an organization linked to the World Health Organization (WHO). The change in status comes after it was reported that, so far this year, more than 5,400 infections have been notified, more than double the figures for the previous year’s period.
This is the first time since the year 2000 that the United States has failed to meet the criteria established by the WHO, which considers a country “free” of measles only when “there are no cases of measles with local transmission or outbreaks lasting twelve months or longer.”
According to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its English-language acronym) of the United States, nearly one third of the measles diagnoses detected this year are linked to outbreaks that began in 2025 and remain active.
The CDC has recorded 5,412 cases so far this year, more than double the maximum of the last three decades reached the previous year, when 2,242 infections were reported. In these months, 590 hospital admissions have occurred and at least six deaths associated with measles, while various states have reported additional deaths.
A country or territory loses the status of measles-free when herd immunity drops to a point at which transmission of the virus is sustained over time, especially if vaccination coverages are not high enough to quickly stop outbreaks.
“This means that we run the risk of exposing ourselves to measles and contracting it if we are not vaccinated. It means that emergency rooms and pediatricians must consider measles in any person with fever and rash, regardless of whether they have traveled abroad or not. And now we could turn into a country exporting measles to other countries,” the doctor Céline Gounder has clarified, in statements collected by the CBS network.
For the moment, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has not offered a public reaction to the decision communicated by the WHO.