{"id":11026,"date":"2025-12-10T19:06:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11026"},"modified":"2025-12-10T19:06:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:06:05","slug":"heres-why-the-measles-outbreak-just-took-a-dangerous-new-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/12\/10\/heres-why-the-measles-outbreak-just-took-a-dangerous-new-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s why the measles outbreak just took a dangerous new turn"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/12\/09\/measles-outbreak-symptoms-elimination-status-outbreak\">Axios<\/a> Scientists are warning that the ongoing&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/07\/09\/us-measles-cases-outbreak-record-cdc-2025\">measles outbreak<\/a>&nbsp;might force the United States to lose its elimination status for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The big picture:<\/strong>&nbsp;For 25 years, the U.S. has been free of yearly measles outbreaks. But this year&#8217;s spike in cases and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/02\/28\/measles-outbreak-texas-infection-facts\">sustained outbreaks<\/a>&nbsp;could change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Measles\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/07\/07\/measles-cases-high-eliminated-us\">reached a new yearly case high<\/a>\u00a0in summer 2025, surging in part because of declining immunization rates and outbreaks across the country.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The spike in cases comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2025\/04\/29\/texas-measles-robert-kennedy-autism\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"downplayed the threat, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">downplayed the threat<\/a>\u00a0from measles and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/healthcare-pharmaceuticals\/us-health-secretary-kennedy-revives-misleading-claims-fetal-debris-measles-shots-2025-05-01\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"repeated misleading claims, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">repeated misleading claims<\/a>\u00a0about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/05\/02\/kennedy-cdc-alternative-measles-treatments\">measles vaccines<\/a>\u00a0before the government response.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Driving the news:&nbsp;<\/strong>The U.S. is on track to lose its &#8220;elimination status&#8221; by the end of January 2026 due to sustained outbreaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There have been more than 1,800 cases of measles nationwide in 2025, per the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/measles\/data-research\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The CDC says 87% of those cases came from more than 45 different outbreaks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Outbreaks in<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>Utah<\/strong>&nbsp;and Arizona remain the biggest in the country, per the CDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There have been three deaths tied to measles this year, CDC says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Texas is also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/17\/health\/measles-us-elimination-status-outbreaks.html\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"seeing a sustained outbreak, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">seeing a sustained outbreak<\/a>, with 803 cases this year.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Axios Scientists are warning that the ongoing&nbsp;measles outbreak&nbsp;might force the United States to lose its elimination status for the first time in decades. The big picture:&nbsp;For 25 years, the U.S. has been free of yearly measles outbreaks. But this year&#8217;s spike in cases and&nbsp;sustained outbreaks&nbsp;could change that. Driving the news:&nbsp;The U.S. is on track to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-measles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11027,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11026\/revisions\/11027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}