A vial of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is pictured at International Community Health Services in Seattle, Washington, US [File: Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo]By Al Jazeera Staff and ReutersPublished On 25 Aug 202625 Aug 2026
The US state of Pennsylvania has reported that two residents died from measles, marking the first fatal cases this year of the disease that had previously been largely eradicated in the United States.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health said on Tuesday that both of the deceased were unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County, but did not share additional details due to privacy concerns.
“Because measles was largely eliminated in the Commonwealth for more than three decades, people are not familiar with this disease and don’t fully understand the potential severity of the illness,” said Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Debra Bogen.
The US is facing the most severe measles outbreak in years as vaccination rates drop below levels that medical experts say are necessary to confer herd immunity. That decrease has been partly driven by an anti-vaccination movement that includes prominent members of the Trump administration, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
At least 2,777 confirmed cases of measles have been recorded in the US thus far this year. Pennsylvania has been among the hardest hit by the outbreak, recording 393 measles cases across 28 different counties.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month calling for the number of recommended vaccines for children to be reduced, continuing a push to roll back decades of scientific consensus on the safety and efficacy of vaccinations.
Trump and Kennedy, also known as RFK Jr, have pushed debunked claims linking vaccinations with autism and purged government health panels tasked with making recommendations on vaccine policy.
“We all thought the Texas outbreak and the deaths there last year would be a wake-up call. Then we had the outbreaks in South Carolina and Utah,” Dr Angela Dunn, former Utah state epidemiologist and previously a division director in infectious disease response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Reuters news service.
Three people died from a measles outbreak in 2025 that began in West Texas and spread to New Mexico.
