\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he measles outbreak in South Carolina now stands at 664 cases, more than doubling in a few weeks, officials said this week. The highly contagious virus has also spread onward to North Carolina, Ohio and Washington state, and similar outbreaks are unfurling in Arizona and Utah as well.<\/p>\n The outbreak, which first began in Texas a year ago this week, has spread to most US states \u2013 and as the US passes the one-year mark, its measles-elimination status will probably end, a symbol indicating an expected wave of year-round preventable disease. The outbreak has been plagued by misinformation, with Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and longtime vaccine critic, framing measles vaccination as a personal choice and promoting unproven treatments.<\/p>\n The vast majority of those infected are children, and most of them did not receive the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR vaccine). Last year, there were 2,242 confirmed cases of measles across 44 states, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There have already been 171 measles cases reported in nine states in 2026 \u2013 and that number does not include the jump in cases reported by South Carolina on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s just the new normal, unfortunately, that public health departments have to be responding to,\u201d said Katherine Wells, director of public health in Lubbock, who oversaw the city\u2019s response to the west Texas measles cluster.<\/p>\n In 2026, measles will probably percolate in more communities with low vaccination rates and then put pressure on vulnerable children and adults even in highly vaccinated communities, she said. And measles isn\u2019t the only fear.<\/p>\n \u201cMeasles is the canary in the coalmine,\u201d Wells said. \u201cAs we see lower and lower vaccination rates, we could see an outbreak of rubella or polio or some of these other vaccine-preventable diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n Because it is so highly contagious \u2013 it can linger in the air in a room for two hours \u2013 measles typically spreads more quickly than other infectious diseases. But preventable illnesses like polio, tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough are not far behind a measles outbreak.<\/p>\n \u201cMeasles is a bellwether,\u201d said James Alwine, emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a virologist, and a member of the coordinating committee of Defend Public Health. \u201cIt means that your vaccination level is so low that all the other vaccine-preventable diseases will come up with time.\u201d<\/p>\n Vaccination rates are falling throughout the US as exemptions from school mandates increase, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama). Kennedy has been a \u201ckey figure\u201d in growing anti-vaccine sentiment for decades, \u201cdenigrating vaccines in general, specifically the MMR vaccine, trying to link it with autism when there\u2019s no link\u201d, said Rob Davidson, an emergency physician in western Michigan and executive director of the Committee to Protect Health Care \u2013 adding that the danger had increased now Kennedy has \u201cthe largest megaphone of public health in the country, maybe in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n Davidson has been a doctor for 28 years, and like many of his peers, he has never seen a case of measles \u2013 all because of vaccines, he said. Now, he is preparing for the day he might encounter the disease in a patient.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something we have to be thinking about on a regular basis again,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a gut punch. It didn\u2019t have to be this way.\u201d<\/p>\n In South Carolina, 531 people are currently in quarantine and 85 in isolation, and eight people have been hospitalized with measles since the start of the outbreak.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel like we\u2019re really kind of staring over the edge, knowing that this is about to get a lot worse,\u201d Johnathon Elkes, an emergency medicine physician at Prisma Health in Greenville, South Carolina, said on Friday.<\/p>\n Helmut Albrecht, an infectious disease specialist at Prisma Health, pleaded with the public on Friday to get vaccinated: \u201cWe have right now the largest outbreak in the US, and it\u2019s going to get worse before it gets better.\u201d<\/p>\n In North Carolina, seven out of eight cases reported in recent weeks were linked to the South Carolina outbreak. At least three children each in Ohio and Washington have also been sickened in the spiraling outbreak, which was first detected in Texas nearly a year ago. The virus is spreading in other states as well. Arizona has seen 217 cases and nine hospitalizations in this outbreak, which started for them in August, and Utah has had 210 cases since its first case was detected in June.<\/p>\n The Pan American Health Organization (Paho) on Friday said it planned to review in April the measles elimination status of the US and Mexico given the ongoing outbreak.<\/p>\n The outbreak began a year ago, on 20 January 2025, when the first child in Texas who tested positive for measles developed a rash. When Wells heard that two children had tested positive and needed to be hospitalized, she feared, correctly, that it was the tip of the iceberg, since one in five children with measles need to be hospitalized.<\/p>\n \u201cOur investigation revealed that there were many, many, many sick children with measles on the ground,\u201d Wells said. \u201cWe were already in a full-blown outbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n The Texas cluster officially ended in August after 762 confirmed cases, 99 hospitalizations, and the deaths of two young children. But by then, the outbreak had already widened to other states.<\/p>\n Losing the US measles elimination status is a warning, Wells said: \u201cWe\u2019re now entering an era where we\u2019re going to see outbreaks in these unvaccinated communities, and then I think those outbreaks will start putting pressure on other, more-vaccinated communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Children under the age of one or with health conditions are the most vulnerable even in highly vaccinated communities. It is a particular concern in healthcare settings, where a child undergoing cancer treatment might come into contact with a measles patient \u2013 especially because the early symptoms of measles are a cough and runny nose; the telltale rash only sets in later.<\/p>\n During the Texas outbreak, Lubbock public health gave out thousands more MMR vaccines than usual, and other areas of the state also mobilized a response, with pharmacies seeing a surge in demand.<\/p>\n Some parents in Lubbock vaccinated their infants early \u2013 babies over the age of six months can get the shot early, as long as they receive a third shot later, and while the second dose is usually recommended at age four, young children can receive it earlier. School nurses reached out to the families of students who were behind on vaccinations or who had opted out for non-medical reasons, letting them know about the safety and importance of vaccines.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had parents come into our clinics who had never vaccinated their children, but seeing the disease and hearing about it on the news, they said: \u2018Oh, this is real. Let me get my child vaccinated,\u2019\u201d Wells said.<\/p>\n But experts are worried by the recent announcement that the US will no longer fully recommend several important vaccines in childhood, which could create access issues and further confusion.<\/p>\n \u201cPutting them on a non-recommended list is going to make people think that maybe they\u2019re not important, maybe they\u2019re not needed,\u201d Alwine said. School mandates are also coming under fire by anti-vaccine advocates, particularly now that several recommendations have changed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make sure that vaccines are available and that individuals know how life-saving vaccines can be,\u201d Wells said. \u201cThe majority of parents from both political sides believe in vaccines and want to see kids being vaccinated. And we need to make sure that those parents, and people who would really be impacted if those vaccination rates start dropping in schools, really speak out and speak up about [how] it\u2019s important that we keep kids vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n The resurgence of preventable illness is straining an already overburdened health system.<\/p>\n \u201cUndoubtedly we\u2019re going to see more meningitis, hepatitis, RSV, rotavirus \u2013 all the things that they just took off the [full] recommendation list,\u201d said Davidson. The thought of seeing more illness was \u201cgutting\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n Local public health departments all over the country are now preparing for their own cases of measles and other threats. One of Wells\u2019s top pieces of advice is improving ties with the community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to have more boots on the ground, working with communities, for all different types of health outcomes and health concerns,\u201d she said. Those efforts can go a long way in identifying cases before they explode into an outbreak \u2013 and they can result in important conversations about why these diseases are such a threat.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve lived in the golden age of medicine for so long that there are so many people who have never seen these diseases, don\u2019t even think about them, don\u2019t even know they exist any more,\u201d Alwine said. \u201cOr people think they\u2019ve been eliminated, but they\u2019re not. They\u2019re just waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The measles outbreak in South Carolina now stands at 664 cases, more than doubling in a few weeks, officials said this week. The highly contagious virus has also spread onward to North Carolina, Ohio and Washington state, and similar outbreaks are unfurling in Arizona and Utah as well. The outbreak, which first began in Texas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[4391,3192,16154,22323,1007,3971],"class_list":{"0":"post-42265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-disease","9":"tag-measles","10":"tag-mmr","11":"tag-oncevanquished","12":"tag-return","13":"tag-spreading"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}