Zanna Anderson | Science Editor
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been 607 confirmed cases of measles — at the time of writing — in the United States since January 2025. This is a 113% increase from the case count in 2024, which totaled 285 cases for the entire year. Of the cases in 2025, 93% were outbreak-related. 12% of patients were hospitalized, 29% were 19 years old or younger and 97% were of unvaccinated or unknown status. The areas most affected by the outbreaks are Texas, Kansas and Mexico.
As stated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina in her blog “Your Local Epidemiologist,” three Americans have died from measles since January, whereas for the entire year of 2024, the CDC confirmed only two deaths to be the result of measles. The number of deaths so far this year also has significant implications, as Jetelina claims that there are usually one to three deaths for every thousand unvaccinated cases of measles. This indicates that there could be somewhere between one thousand and three thousand unrecorded cases so far in 2025.
To avoid contracting measles and spreading it to more individuals, the CDC recommends two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and also protecting oneself while travelling. Measles can live in the air for up to two hours, so for the lowest chance of contracting the disease, wear the proper protective equipment in outbreak regions — Texas, Mexico and Kansas.