\n The fast-growing measles outbreak in South Carolina is now the largest in the United States since the disease was declared eliminated in this country more than two decades ago.\n <\/p>\n
\n With 789 cases reported as of Tuesday, the South Carolina outbreak surpassed a massive outbreak in Texas, which reached 762 cases before it ended in August last year. Two children died during the outbreak in Texas.\n <\/p>\n
\n South Carolina, which first reported cases in October, has added more than 600 cases in 2026 alone. At least 18 people \u2013 adults and children \u2013 have been hospitalized for complications of measles, the state health department said Tuesday, and no deaths have been reported.\n <\/p>\n
\n There are an additional 557 people in quarantine in South Carolina, meaning they may have been exposed to measles and don\u2019t have immunity to it through vaccination or prior infection. The health department reported exposures at three additional schools Tuesday, on top of existing quarantines among students at 20 others.\n <\/p>\n
\n Cases in North Carolina and Washington have also been linked to the South Carolina outbreak.\n <\/p>\n
\n Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, meaning there has not been continuous transmission for more than a year at a time.\n <\/p>\n
\n Before 2025, there were an average of about 180 measles cases reported each year since elimination, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The US reported more than 2,200 confirmed measles cases in 2025 \u2014 significantly more than there have been in any year since 2000.\n <\/p>\n
\n The CDC said<\/a> on Friday that there have been 416 confirmed measles cases reported in the US so far in 2026, but its update included data up until Thursday, before South Carolina\u2019s latest numbers came in. At least 14 states have reported a confirmed measles case so far this year, and another large outbreak continues to grow along the Arizona-Utah border.\n <\/p>\n \n The spread of measles over the past year has left the US at risk of losing elimination status<\/a>, which the Pan American Health Organization could decide to revoke when it meets in April.\n <\/p>\n \n The CDC previously called<\/a> measles elimination \u201ca historic public health achievement,\u201d possible in large part because of vaccination.The measles vaccine was licensed in 1963 and the combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine that is most commonly used first became widely available in the US in the 1970s.\n <\/p>\n \n Previously, the country\u2019s elimination status was threatened in 2019, amid large outbreaks in New York<\/a> concentrated in Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Rockland County.\n <\/p>\n \n Under US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, the federal government\u2019s posture toward measles has changed.\n <\/p>\n \n CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Ralph Abraham, a former Louisiana surgeon general who ended <\/a>some vaccine promotion<\/a> in his state before taking<\/a> his new post late last year, argued last week that ongoing measles transmission from the Texas outbreak, which started in January 2025, has not been proved.\n <\/p>\n \n Nonetheless, Abraham said the loss of measles elimination status would \u201cnot really\u201d be significant.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s just the cost of doing business with our borders,\u201d Abraham told reporters in a briefing. \u201cWe have these communities that choose to be unvaccinated. That\u2019s their personal freedom.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Abraham added that \u201cvaccination remains the most effective way to prevent measles\u201d and said the CDC is \u201chere to help,\u201d but they\u2019re willing to listen to alternatives \u201cfor treatment and prevention.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The vast majority of cases in the South Carolina outbreak are among children, nearly all of whom were not fully vaccinated with the recommended two doses of MMR vaccine. Of the 789 cases reported as of Tuesday, more than 700 were not vaccinated or had not received the two recommended MMR doses, the health department said.\n <\/p>\n \n State health officials have been encouraging vaccination, including through facilitating mobile health unit vaccination events, to try to contain the outbreak.\n <\/p>\n