US to lose crucial public health status — decades after eliminating ‘world’s most contagious disease’

Résumé détaillé

It’s been a slow-motion train wreck.

Twenty-six years ago, the US eliminated endemic transmission one of the world’s most contagious diseases, thanks largely to the development and widespread use of a highly effective vaccine.

But now, that hard-won victory is unraveling. The virus once pushed out of circulation has roared back to life, fueling a growing wave of illnesses and threatening to strip the country of a public health milestone that took decades to achieve.

Next week, a PAHO commission is scheduled to meet in Washington, D.C., to consider whether the US should lose its measles elimination status.

The independent panel, made up of experts in epidemiology, public health, virology, pediatrics and immunization, will examine whether measles has been spreading continuously in the US for at least 12 months — the benchmark for determining that the disease is once again endemic.

A New York Times investigation found that several chains of measles transmission appear to have persisted for more than a year, based on publicly available genetic data analyzed by scientists ahead of the meeting.

For example, three separate chains of transmission were still active in July 2026 — two in Utah and one in Arizona. All three could be traced back to an outbreak in Texas more than a year earlier.

One of those chains continued spreading in Utah through September, occasionally crossing into neighboring Oregon and Washington.

“This alone is strong evidence that there has been ongoing transmission for over a year,” Bill Hanage, co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told the Times.

In 2026 alone, the US has reported 5,182 confirmed cases — the highest annual total in 35 years, and more than double the number recorded in all of 2025, according to the CDC.

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