Sept. 3, 2026

Measles, Vaccinations, & Outbreaks

Apple Podcasts

Show Notes

Stan, Clarence, Barry and the Health Chatter team chat with Elizabeth Parilla and Jayne Griffith, from the Minnesota Department of Health, for a conversation about measles, vaccinations, and disease outbreaks.

Elizabeth Parilla – Vaccine Preventable Disease Section Manager, Minnesota Department of Health – has spent nearly 20 years working in public health to support immunization efforts and prevent vaccine-preventable diseases. At the Minnesota Department of Health, she has served as an epidemiologist, supervisor, and manager, working alongside health care providers, community organizations, and public health partners to build and strengthen programs that help keep Minnesotans healthy. Beth also spent five years with the American Immunization Registry Association, where she supported collaboration among immunization programs across the country.

Jayne Griffith – Senior Epidemiologist, Minnesota Department of Health – joined the Minnesota Department of Health in 2000 and became the department’s first bioterrorism epidemiologist following the 2001 anthrax attacks. In that role, she worked with federal partners to develop plans for the early detection of and response to bioterrorism-related disease threats. Throughout her career as an infectious disease epidemiologist, Jayne has responded to numerous public health threats, including the 2001 anthrax letters, SARS, Ebola, H1N1 influenza, COVID-19, and more than 200 measles cases. Before joining the Minnesota Department of Health, she worked as a clinical research program manager at the University of Minnesota and VA Medical Center and held adjunct faculty positions at Minneapolis Community and Technical College and Winona State University. She earned a Master of Arts in Educational Psychology and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota.

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Brought to you in support of Hue-MAN, who is Creating Healthy Communities through Innovative Partnerships.

More about their work can be found at https://www.huemanpartnershipalliance.org/

Research

What are measles?

Measles is highly contagious. If one person has it, up to 9 out of 10 people who come into close contact with that person will become infected if they are not protected.

It spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. You can get measles just by being in a room where a person with measles has been. This can happen even up to 2 hours after that person has left.

Signs and symptoms

Measles symptoms appear 7 to 14 days after contact with the virus. Common measles symptoms include:

High fever (may spike to more than 104° F)
Cough
Runny nose (coryza)
Red, watery eyes (conjunctivitis or pink eye)
Rash

Who is at risk?

Anyone who is not protected against measles is at risk.

Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000. However, since early 2025, U.S. measles cases have been increasing, and we've had several large outbreaks of more than 50 cases. Measles is also still common in many parts of the world. Every year, measles infections occur in the United States because unvaccinated travelers get measles while they are in other countries and then travel to the United States. These travelers are mostly Americans and sometimes international visitors.

Measles can cause serious health complications in all age groups. However, some groups are at higher risk of experiencing severe complications from measles:

Children younger than 5 years of age
Adults older than 20 years of age
Pregnant women
People with weakened immune systems, such as from leukemia or HIV infection

Prevention

Protect yourself with the vaccine. The best way to protect against measles is with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. MMR is safe and effective – serious reactions are extremely rare. Two doses of MMR vaccine are about 97% effective at preventing measles; one dose is about 93% effective.

Vaccination

Most people who are vaccinated with MMR or MMRV will be protected for life. Vaccines and high rates of vaccination have made these diseases much less common in the United States, compared to the period before these vaccines were available.

Two doses of the MMR vaccine are recommended by doctors as the best way to protect against measles, mumps, and rubella.
Children may get 2 doses of MMRV vaccine instead.
MMR and MMRV vaccines usually protect people for life against measles and rubella; but immunity against mumps may decrease over time.

Vaccination rates

Coverage rates for several vaccines declined last school year including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), which was 92.4%, down from 92.5% the year before, according to the CDC report. Roughly 280,000 kindergartners attended school without documented protection.
Most of the vaccine exemptions last school year were nonmedical and these rates were double what they were in the 2020-’21 school year. AAP policy calls for states to eliminate nonmedical exemptions.
The CDC report comes a week after President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order that called for reducing the number of recommended vaccines and spacing them out. The order also calls for administering MMR vaccine as separate, single-disease shots despite these not being available in the U.S. since 2009.

Coverage rates for other vaccines in the CDC’s kindergarten report either stayed the same as the previous year or dropped slightly. They were:

94% for hepatitis B,
92.4% for polio,
92.3% up-to-date for varicella and
92% for diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis.

Outbreaks

As of August 13, 2026, 2,566 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026.

There have been 38 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 94% of confirmed cases (2,407 of 2,566) are outbreak-associated (1,032 from outbreaks starting in 2026 and 1,375 from outbreaks that started in 2025)
For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States

Measles infections in the first seven months of this year surpassed all of 2025, when the U.S. reported the most annual cases in over three decades.

Each measles case in the 2025 US outbreak—the largest since the disease was eliminated from the country in 2000—cost $43,200, rising to $58,600 when including the public health response, Johns Hopkins researchers estimate in Vaccine.

Multiply that by the 2,289 confirmed US cases last year, and the total rises to $134 million, which would not, of course, include unreported cases.

Despite the wide availability of vaccines, low uptake continues to lead to measles outbreaks, representing significant costs and public health burden.
The various outbreaks put the country at risk of losing its measles elimination status this year. Measles has been considered eliminated in the U.S. since 2000, meaning that the virus was no longer spreading continuously for more than one year within the country. Authorities will examine the U.S. measles status in November.