CDC: Nearly 1,000 US measles cases confirmed in first two months of 2026

WASHINGTON — Measles is spreading across the U.S. at rates not seen since the early ’90s, and experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are urging people to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

The U.S. has already confirmed 982 cases of measles in 2026 as of Feb. 19, according to the CDC’s outbreak tracker for the disease. The number is nearly half of the total cases confirmed in the nation during all of 2025, which had the most confirmed cases since 1991.

There have been seven new outbreaks reported in 2026, but the vast majority of the year’s new confirmed cases stem from ongoing outbreaks that started in 2025.

South Carolina has the highest number of confirmed measles cases so far in 2026, compared with any other state in the nation, at 632 cases. The next highest is Utah with 117 cases, then Florida with 64 cases. In 2025, the states with the most confirmed measles cases were Texas, South Carolina and Arizona, with 803 cases, 329 cases and 221 cases, respectively.

Cases are spiking as vaccination rates drop nationwide, according to the CDC. 

The health agency said that when over 95% of a community is vaccinated, most people are protected against measles through community, or herd, immunity. But vaccination rates have dropped under that critical threshold in recent years, specifically among children.

“Vaccination coverage among U.S. kindergartners has decreased from 95.2% during the 2019–2020 school year to 92.5% in the 2024–2025 school year, leaving approximately 286,000 kindergartners at risk during the 2024–2025 school year,” the CDC’s website said. “At local levels, vaccine coverage rates may vary considerably, and pockets of unvaccinated people can exist in states with high vaccination coverage. When measles gets into communities of unvaccinated people in the United States, outbreaks can occur.”