ALBANY, N.Y. — A child in Lewis County, New York, has died in connection with the state's ongoing measles outbreak, the first known measles-associated death in New York State in more than 30 years, the New York State Department of Health and Lewis County Public Health said in a joint statement released Monday, November 2.
The death comes amid a surge in measles cases nationwide. As of October 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had counted 4,852 confirmed cases nationwide in 2026, more than double the 2,289 cases reported in all of 2025. The CDC reports that 96 percent of this year's cases occurred in people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown.
As of October 24, New York had recorded 178 measles cases this year: 170 in the state outside New York City and eight in the city, according to the state health department. The state declared a State Disaster Emergency over the outbreak on October 5.
The CDC's national measles tracker, last updated October 30, shows 43 new outbreaks this year, with 96 percent of cases linked to an outbreak, and 511 people hospitalized, or 11 percent of cases, including 16 percent of children under 5. The CDC counted three measles deaths in 2026 as of that update, a figure the agency says is subject to change.
Public health experts have attributed the rise in infections to a decline in vaccination rates. The CDC reports that MMR vaccination coverage among U.S. kindergartners fell from 95.2 percent in the 2019-2020 school year to 92.4 percent in 2025-2026, leaving about 280,000 kindergartners at risk.
The United States is at risk of losing its status as a measles-eliminated nation. That designation is threatened if the country records continuous transmission of a single strain for more than 12 months, a milestone the U.S. is projected to reach in November. A Pan American Health Organization committee will meet November 10-13 to determine whether the U.S. and Mexico have lost elimination status.
