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Measles was officially declared “excluded” in the US in 2000, but if things continue to progress in 2025, that designation could change soon.
“Measles removal status” is achieved in a country or region when there is no sustained transmission of the virus for more than 12 months, Dr. William Moss, professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School and director of the school’s International Vaccine Access Center, explained in a monthly media briefing.
He said the country will lose its exclusion status if the outbreak is extended for more than a year. We have recently come close to crossing that threshold, but we barely avoided it.
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“We spent a quarter of a century in measles removal,” Moss said. “When this massive outbreak in New York and New York City was extended for more than 12 months in 2019, we almost lost it. It was only 12 months.”
More than 1,200 cases of measles were reported that year in large part in a wide range of vaccinated, including the Orthodox Jewish community in New York.
So far, nearly 500 confirmed cases have been reported, increasing weekly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced a new tally.
The biggest outbreak of 2025 was in western Texas, where the virus is largely spreading to Mennonite communities without baxia. Research into past measles outbreaks in the Amish community shows that this new wave of cases can last for months or a year.
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Moss said it’s difficult to say if this year’s outbreak, which began in January, will last for more than 12 months, but that’s possible.
“I hope not. I hope we can handle this by increasing vaccination coverage, but it remains a threat and if this continues, we may lose our measles elimination status.”
In 1978, the CDC announced its goal of eliminating highly contagious viruses. The agency set a deadline of 1982.
The US missed that deadline in quite a few years, but ultimately by 2000 it was “excluded thanks to a highly effective vaccination program in the US.
Although vaccine skepticism has risen since the Covid-19 pandemic, there are early signs that many people have been vaccinated against measles since the outbreaks began in Texas and New Mexico, the Associated Press reports.
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