U.S. Lost Measles-Elimination Status? PAHO Panel Meets This Week
An independent panel appointed by the Pan American Health Organization meets this week to decide whether the United States has lost its measles-elimination status. At least 5,182 cases have been confirmed this year, and 11 people have died since the Texas outbreak began in January 2025.
An independent panel appointed by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) meets this week to decide whether the United States has lost its measles-elimination status. The ruling follows at least 5,182 confirmed cases this year, mostly across 45 states and Washington, D.C., according to CDC data.
The experts come from epidemiology, public health, virology, pediatrics and immunization. They will weigh evidence on whether the country has seen a year of continuous measles transmission.
Canada lost its own elimination status last year after failing to contain an outbreak that lasted a year.
The question of linked outbreaks
Measles was first confirmed in a small town in western Texas in January 2025. It then spread to neighboring Texas counties, and Utah, Arizona, South Carolina and Pennsylvania reported their own outbreaks.
Whether those outbreaks are connected is unclear. If the Texas cases link to the later ones, the country will have recorded a year of continuous spread.
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said separate epidemics would change the outcome. In that case, he said, "you can't say you've had 12 months of continuous transmission." The country would then keep its status.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said the panel may study genetic data. It could check whether strains circulating in different communities match the strains first seen in Texas.
How the U.S. earned the status
Before the vaccine arrived, nearly all children caught measles by age 15, according to the CDC. The agency estimates 3 to 4 million Americans were infected each year. About 48,000 were hospitalized and 400 to 500 died.
The first vaccine came in 1963. Confirmed cases fell from 385,165 that year to 26,686 in 1973. By 2000, annual cases had dropped to 85, and the country declared measles eliminated, meaning no continuous spread for at least 12 months.
"We should be proud as a nation that we were able to eliminate the world's most contagious infectious disease," Offit said.
Cases and deaths
The CDC recorded 2,289 confirmed cases in all of 2025. Before that, annual cases had not passed 2,000 since 1992. Eleven measles deaths have been confirmed over nearly two years, largely among unvaccinated people or children too young for the vaccine.
Offit said losing the status would be "a tremendous loss." He added that "at best, losing the elimination status would be a call to arms."
