![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2017-06-08T131939Z_1189275883_RC11B0FE7F20_RTRMADP_3_GULF-QATAR-JAZEERA-1714943623.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 7 Nov 20267 Nov 2026<\/p>\n
A total of 5,182 confirmed measles cases have been reported in the United States to date in 2026, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).<\/p>\n
The figure for the highly contagious but vaccine-preventable disease is the highest number reported by the CDC since 1991.<\/p>\n
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Children below the age of five make up 18 percent of cases, while children between ages five and 19 account for 41 percent of cases.<\/p>\n
In total, children and teenagers account for about 59 percent of confirmed cases.<\/p>\n
The majority of cases, a total of 4,993, were outbreak-associated.<\/p>\n
The outbreak comes as vaccination coverage among US kindergarteners has decreased<\/a> from 95.2 percent during the 2019-2020 school year to 92.4 percent in the 2025-2026 school year.<\/p>\n The number of confirmed cases by November 2026 is more than double the 2,289 confirmed measles cases reported in 2025.<\/p>\n Dispute over death toll<\/p>\n According to CDC data, four people have died due to measles in 2026.<\/p>\n However, the agency\u2019s national death toll is lower than the number of measles-related deaths reported by state officials, particularly in Pennsylvania, the state hardest hit by the outbreak.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania\u2019s Department of Health reported six deaths and 1,487 cases this year.<\/p>\n The federal count has been at the centre of a dispute<\/a> between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr over how measles deaths are classified.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania reports \u201cmeasles-associated\u201d deaths after a person with confirmed measles dies within 30 days of developing symptoms, unless the death resulted from an unrelated event.<\/p>\n In August, Pennsylvania reported that two unvaccinated people<\/a> died of measles. The CDC initially included the deaths in its national tally but subsequently removed them after Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic, questioned whether measles had caused or contributed to the fatalities.<\/p>\n The CDC has said it is working with the US Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists to establish a standardised definition for measles deaths.<\/p>\n Infectious disease experts warn<\/a> that the dispute over how to classify the deaths puts the CDC at odds with a longstanding approach to tracking the consequences of measles.<\/p>\n Epidemiologists have told Al Jazeera that tracking \u201cmeasles-associated\u201d deaths has long been a standard<\/a> used by the World Health Organization and the CDC.<\/p>\n The US declared the virus eliminated<\/a> more than two decades ago. Measles cases have also increased globally<\/a>, particularly in communities that are vaccine-sceptical or where there are gaps in healthcare access.<\/p>\n Experts warn that declining vaccination rates in one geographic location can leave people thousands of miles away vulnerable, making measles prevention a shared global responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Children and teenagers make up almost 60 percent of confirmed cases. Published On 7 Nov 20267 Nov 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60,43,115,5872],"class_list":["post-677358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}