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By Jordan King
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The United States is one of three countries that this week may lose its official measles-free status, which it earned more than a quarter-century ago.
On Friday, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), an international public-health agency for the Americas, will assess countries’ measles reports in their annual meeting in Washington.
The U.S., which has seen a resurgence in outbreaks that has pushed infections to their highest level since 1991, is on a watch list, along with Mexico and Bolivia, PAHO told Reuters this week. The U.S. declared measles eliminated in 2000, but that does not mean the disease has entirely disappeared, just that it is not continuously circulating.
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PAHO, which serves as the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for the Americas, has asked all 35 member states in the Americas to submit measles status reports for review.
Newsweek has mapped the current status of these countries below, along with the rest of the world.
Measles in the United States
Six people have suffered measles-related deaths in the United States this year, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provisional figures, as of November 6.
This is double the three deaths recorded in 2025, the country’s first measles-associated fatalities in a decade. At the beginning of this month, New York state officials said a child died after contracting measles, the state’s first measles-associated death in more than 30 years.
The U.S. has recorded 5,182 measles cases so far in 2026, compared with just 85 in all of 2000. That is roughly 61 times as many infections as in the year America celebrated eliminating the disease.
It comes as the country has seen a national decline in the use of the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine for children since the COVID-19 pandemic. A county-level data set from Johns Hopkins University, published in June 2025, found that of 2,066 counties studied, 78 percent reported a drop in vaccinations.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long faced criticism for his rhetoric about vaccines. He has insisted he is not “anti-vax” and has publicly said the government "promotes" the MMR vaccine, acknowledging that it is highly effective at preventing measles, and he said children should receive it, but he also has openly questioned vaccine safety for decades.
Measles-linked deaths recorded since Kennedy Jr. took office (nine) in 2025 have surpassed those recorded in the previous 20 years combined. From 2000 to 2020, there were three measles deaths in the U.S.—two in 2003 and one in 2015.
When Newsweek approached HHS for comment on the figures previously, it noted the importance of vaccines and pointed to a CDC statement that said it is “working closely with state and local health departments to strengthen response efforts, rapidly support affected communities across the state, and communicate the steps people can take to slow the spread of measles.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Dave Siminoff.
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