The United States is having its worst year for measles in more than three decades.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday the national case count, which is at 1,288, has surpassed 2019, when there were 1,274 cases for the year.
The U.S. almost lost its status of having eliminated the illness in 2019, and that could happen in 2025 if the virus spreads nonstop for 12 months. In 2000, the World Health Organization said measles had been eradicated from the U.S.
This year’s measles outbreaks started five months ago in under-vaccinated communities in West Texas. There have been 27 reported outbreaks this year, according to the CDC.
Two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico have died and dozens of people have been sent to the hospital following the outbreaks.
Twelve other states have current confirmed outbreaks of three or more people, including Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Utah. Four other states had outbreaks that have ended.
These outbreaks come at a time when vaccine skepticism is on the rise and childhood vaccination rates have been declining. Measles is a vaccine-preventable illness.
The CDC identified 22 outbreaks in 2019, the largest being two separate clusters in New York. These were linked because measles was spreading through close-knit Orthodox Jewish communities, the CDC said.
It's a similar situation this year, where the measles outbreak in West Texas stemmed from a Mennonite community.
Mennonite churches do not formally discourage vaccination, though more conservative Mennonite communities historically have low vaccination rates and a distrust of government.
A recent study found childhood vaccination rates against measles fell after the Covid-19 pandemic in nearly 80 percent of the more than 2,000 U.S. counties with available data, including in states with measles outbreaks this year.
In Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the Texas outbreak, only 82 percent of kindergarteners were up-to-date with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
