Global health experts will decide in the coming days whether the United States has lost its official measles-free status, a public health achievement it has held since 2000, after outbreaks across the country sickened thousands of Americans.
The decision by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) poses a new test for the Trump administration and its top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has for years spread doubts, without scientific evidence, about the safety of measles vaccines. Public health experts say his actions as health secretary to reduce the number of childhood immunizations have increased vaccine hesitancy and fueled the country's highest infection rate in more than three decades.
PAHO asked all 35 member states in the Americas to submit measles status reports for review by a panel of outside experts. They will make their recommendations during closed-door deliberations in Washington, where their annual meeting runs through November 13. Mexico and Bolivia are also on the watch list because of prolonged outbreaks. PAHO Director Jarbas Barbosa will then make the final decision, which is expected to be made public early next week.
Since President Donald Trump took office for a second time in early 2025, nearly 7,500 U.S. measles cases and 11 deaths have been reported by state and federal health officials. The highly contagious virus commonly causes high fever and a rash and can lead to serious long-term complications and death. PAHO experts will consider whether U.S. measles transmission has continued uninterrupted for 12 months or longer; based on publicly available data, the Arizona-Utah outbreak, which began in June 2025 and is still going, likely meets that criteria.
"It feels really concerning, as though everything is falling apart. The U.S. was held up as a model for a lot of vaccine programs," said Helen Bedford, professor of children's health at University College London. "But measles is definitely back in the United States. And it will take a lot of work to reverse that. And it is tragic, because it's children who are going to suffer at the end of the day."
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that national vaccination rates declined before Kennedy took office. Dr. Erica Schwartz, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this week that the agency works closely with states to contain outbreaks, with a focus on communities where immunizations have trended lower for decades. If the U.S. loses its measles-free status, she said, "we're going to be doing the same exact thing that we've been doing today" — including reemphasizing that the number one way to prevent measles is the MMR vaccine.
Canada, Spain and the UK recently lost measles-elimination status after review by World Health Organization experts. The United States dropped out of the WHO but remains a member of PAHO, its Americas branch. Demetre Daskalakis, a former top CDC official who resigned after Kennedy took office, said losing the status would be a sign of a broader dismantling of the nation's public health system: "Measles is the great indicator of where the cracks are in our foundation."
