Michigan joins six other states with measles outbreaks

Michigan officials confirmed a new measles outbreak Thursday near Grand Rapids, bringing the U.S. to seven states actively outbreakwith the vaccine-preventable disease.

- Laura Ungar

Last week, US measles cases topped 700, with Texas reporting the majority of them. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children contracted measles in a recent Texas outbreak. An April New Mexico case was not vaccinated also died of a measles-related illness. Even as the virus continued to spread and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention redirected resources to West Texas, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a televised Cabinet meeting Thursday that measles cases were plateauing nationally. The US now reports 124 cases of the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.

States with active outbreaks - defined as three or more cases - include Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Oklahoma, Ohio, Texas and now Mexico. The multistate outbreak terrifies Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas confirms health experts' fears that the virus will take hold in other US communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization have said Mexico cases are linked to the Texas outbreak.