A 6-week-old girl is one of two people with measles who died in Pennsylvania, the Lancaster County medical examiner reported Friday, as the national count of measles cases hit a new 35-year high of 3,134 cases.
Dr. Stephen Diamantoni told NBC affiliate WGAL that the baby died in August and also suffered from a rare genetic disorder called Amish lethal microcephaly. This is the second measles-related death in a baby in Lancaster County.
A baby died shortly after birth in mid-August, after his infected mother went into labor a month early.
At least 115 more people in Pennsylvania, mostly in Lancaster County, have been diagnosed with measles in the last week, the health department reported Friday, bringing the outbreak in the state to about 577 cases in recent months.
According to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles in the United States continues to increase.
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Outbreaks in Wisconsin and Ohio are gaining strength.
Wisconsin has 144 casescompared to 26 a month ago. In Ohio there are now 129 cases, up from just over 60 in the same period.
The number of people across the country who have fallen ill with measles is undoubtedly much higher, as many do not get tested, according to experts.
This new milestone – the highest number of confirmed cases since 1991 – is yet another sign that this highly contagious virus is gaining ground, especially in areas of the country where vaccination rates are declining. The outbreaks are driving up health care costs and have led to hundreds of hospitalizations, including among children and pregnant women.
“Measles is behaving as if it were already endemic. There is a lot of local transmission,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who led the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases before resigning last year. “If I had to bet, I would expect more than 5,000 cases this year.”
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The current outbreaks are threatening the status of the country, which had eliminated measles in 2000. According to experts, almost everyone who has had measles contracted the virus from a family member, neighbor or someone else within the borders of the United States. Only 16 cases were reported among people visiting the country from other nations.
Global health authorities are closely watching the measles situation in the United States. In November, a group from the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), will meet to decide whether the United States has lost its measles-free status.
PAHO is specifically analyzing whether a single chain of measles transmission has continued for more than 12 months, as well as whether there are a significant number of cases in which the source of infection is unknown, said Noel Brewer, president of an independent committee that collaborates with the CDC in analyzing the measles situation in the country before the PAHO meeting.
“The country has had measles cases every week for the last 20 months, and at least one regional outbreak has already passed the 12 month mark“said Brewer, who is also a professor of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “There is no end in sight.”
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Daskalakis compared losing measles elimination status to detecting uncontrolled blood pressure during a routine health checkup: It’s a warning sign of health problems to come.
“Measles elimination is about more than continued transmission. It also means: ‘Do you have a public health system that can respond quickly? Do you have adequate surveillance? Do you have an environment that supports high measles vaccine coverage?'” Daskalakis said.
This would indicate “a loss of confidence” in the country’s ability to control outbreaks, said Dr. William Moss, a professor in the departments of epidemiology and international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“Getting it back would require an enormous amount of work,” Moss said. “We would have to stop the transmission of the measles virus in the country and then undergo a re-verification process.”
In addition to the Pennsylvania deaths, three more people died from measles-related complications in 2025. Those deaths occurred in Texas and New Mexico and were immediately recognized by the CDC.
Following a public back-and-forth between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro – who announced the recent deaths during a press conference last week – and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suggested on social media that the deaths had been “made up” by a member of the governor’s team, the CDC has not officially acknowledged the 2026 deaths.
This Friday, the CDC referred a request for comment to a post by Kennedy on the social network X in which he said that the agency “will continue to update its reports as additional information becomes available.”
