The US is expected to record 982 measles cases in 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. That’s more than four times as many cases as last year, when the outbreak was just beginning in West Texas.
Twenty-six states have reported cases so far this year. Large outbreaks continue to develop in Utah, Arizona and, especially, South Carolina, where the virus has been spreading since the fall. As of Friday, the state has reported nearly 800 cases since January, bringing the total number of outbreaks to 973.
The largest single measles outbreak the US has seen in a generation. South Carolina state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said at least 20 people have been hospitalized.
“These hospitalizations include adults and children,” Bell said when speaking to reporters on Wednesday. “More cases required measles treatment but were not hospitalized.”
According to the CDC, more than 1 in 10 measles cases by 2025 will result in hospitalization. Most of them were children and teenagers.
In Florida, cases are also on the rise: The state health department has reported 92 cases since the start of the year. Sixty-six of those cases are in Collier County, and most are concentrated at Ave Maria University, near Naples.
Graduate student Blaise Carney told NBC affiliate WBBH that he was one of the first on campus to get sick last month.
“It started with an ear infection,” Carney said. “Then the sniffles, the sore throat and everything else. Then it got worse, until I was in the ER and had a rash all over my body.”
Carney said he was diagnosed with measles and strep throat at the same time, and received intravenous fluids in the ER. He did not need to be admitted to the hospital, instead he locked himself in his bedroom, and said he stayed in bed for a week.
Carney said he was vaccinated against the virus as a child.
Two doses of the measles vaccine — one given at about age 1 and the second at about age 5 — are 97% effective at preventing measles, usually for life, according to the CDC. That means 3% of people can get mumps even after being vaccinated.
Despite his illness, Carney said, the numbers are overwhelmingly in favor of the gun.
“If you are not vaccinated, go ahead and get vaccinated,” he said. “It may not protect you 100%, but it’s your best shot.”
Most people with measles are among the unvaccinated.
While most people will recover, some will experience long-term health problems after their outbreaks have subsided. The virus targets cells that play an important role in a person’s immune system, leaving them vulnerable to subsequent infections.
In rare cases, people can go on to develop dangerous inflammation of the brain 7 to 10 years after measles infection. The condition, called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, or SSPE, is almost always fatal.
On Saturday, doctors at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California described the details of one case in the New England Journal of Medicine.
It involved a 7-year-old boy who went to the hospital after several months of seizures and worsening cognitive problems.
The boy had measles as a child while living in Afghanistan, where the virus has not been eradicated. (The US could lose its eradication status as soon as this year as vaccination rates drop and the virus becomes stronger again.)
Doctors wrote that when the boy arrived at the hospital, he could not speak and his muscles were not working normally – signs of serious neurological problems. He was diagnosed with SSPE. Less than a year after he started getting sick, he died.
Before measles was eliminated in the US, the CDC estimated that 7 to 11 in 100,000 people were at risk of SSPE. That risk may be higher for people who get measles before their second birthday.
