{"id":11969,"date":"2026-05-06T19:49:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11969"},"modified":"2026-05-06T19:49:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:49:49","slug":"will-the-usa-lose-its-measles-elimination-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/05\/06\/will-the-usa-lose-its-measles-elimination-status\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the USA lose its measles elimination status?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900466-6\/fulltext\">The Lancet<\/a> The USA currently faces its largest measles outbreak in decades, with 2280 confirmed cases in 2025 and 910 additional cases reported in just the first 6 weeks of 2026.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900466-6\/fulltext#\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0This re-emergence threatens one of the country&#8217;s major public health achievements: the elimination of measles in 2000, a feat reached after several years of extensive nationwide vaccination efforts, including a change to a two-dose measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination schedule.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900466-6\/fulltext#\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0The current epidemic started in January, 2025, in Texas, USA, with two imported cases, and has since spread to 45 US states.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900466-6\/fulltext#\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), measles elimination status requires the sustained absence of endemic transmission\u2014defined as any continuous transmission chain\u2014persisting for at least 1 year.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900466-6\/fulltext#\"><sup>2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Canada lost its elimination status on Nov 10, 2025, prompting the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to declare that the Region of the Americas\u2014which had been the first region worldwide to eliminate measles twice\u2014had lost its measles-free status.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900466-6\/fulltext#\"><sup>3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0This development reflects a broader global resurgence of measles: on Jan 26, 2026, six European countries, including the UK and Spain, also lost their elimination status.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736%2826%2900466-6\/fulltext#\"><sup>4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Concerns are growing that the USA might soon face a similar outcome, with a decision from the PAHO Measles and Rubella Elimination Regional Monitoring and Re-Verification Commission forthcoming in November, 2026. Therefore, we aimed to design a national-scale policy framework for rapid assessment of measles elimination status using readily available data\u2014not only to advise US vaccine policy makers ahead of the decision, but to also serve as an early warning approach for other countries on the brink of losing elimination status.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lancet The USA currently faces its largest measles outbreak in decades, with 2280 confirmed cases in 2025 and 910 additional cases reported in just the first 6 weeks of 2026.1\u00a0This re-emergence threatens one of the country&#8217;s major public health achievements: the elimination of measles in 2000, a feat reached after several years of extensive [&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-11969","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\/11969","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=11969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11970,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11969\/revisions\/11970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}