Measles flare-up puts U.S. standing at risk

Panel will decide if country forfeits elimination status amid vaccine gap.

- BY CORINNE PURTILL

JULIO CORTEZ Associated Press A WORKER addresses measles in Gaines County, Texas, the site of an outbreak.

One year ago, a case of measles was recorded in Gaines County, Texas.

It was the start of an outbreak that killed two children and sickened at least 760 people. Thousands more in the U.S. have contracted measles since.

In April, the Pan American Health Organization, an offshoot of the World Health Organization, will determine whether the same virus strain first recorded in west Texas on Jan. 20, 2025, has been transmitted without interruption in the 12 months since.

If it has, the U.S. will officially lose the measles elimination status that the organization conferred in 2000.

Meeting those requirements “took several decades of really hard work,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious-disease specialist and emeritus professor at UC Berkeley. “Losing that distinction is an embarrassment for the United States. It’s another nail in the coffin for the credibility of this country.”

In public health terms, elimination means that a disease has become rare enough, and immunity to it widespread enough, that local transmission dwindles quickly if a case or two emerges.

Scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are studying virus sequences from multiple sites around the nation to determine whether more recent measles cases are descended from the original outbreak or were introduced from other locations, a distinction that could affect whether the U.S. keeps its status.