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The United States has recorded 5,182 confirmed measles cases in 2026, marking the highest level of the highly contagious disease in 35 years.
Data released Friday by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention show the current count more than doubles the 2,289 cases reported throughout all of 2025.
State health officials have confirmed at least eight measles-related deaths, affecting very young children among the victims.
Although public health authorities declared measles eradicated in the United States in 2000 following widespread vaccination, declining immunisation rates and rising scepticism toward health authorities have fuelled a major resurgence.
Critics directly accuse Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. of stoking public distrust through his repeated promotion of vaccine misinformation and minimisation of the risks associated with the virus.
While measles typically causes fever, respiratory symptoms, and skin rashes, severe cases trigger life-threatening complications such as pneumonia and brain inflammation.
Before scientists developed the measles vaccine in the early 1960s, the disease killed hundreds of American children annually, and it continues to claim tens of thousands of lives globally every year.
