A child has died of a deadly disease in New York for the first time in more than 30 years, as the US reels from a disastrous outbreak.
This time, in New York.
It’s the first death attributed to the rubeola virus in that state in more than 30 years.
It’s not likely to be the last.
Some 4850 cases have been recorded across the nation so far this year. However, the actual number is likely much higher. More than 500 have had to be hospitalised.
But the Trump Administration-controlled Centres for Disease Control (CDC) officially concedes that only four deaths may have been a direct result of infection.
That figure is being disputed.
Pennsylvania alone now reports at least six of its citizens have died of measles. Some 1467 cases have been reported, many among its largely unvaccinated Amish religious community.
Two unvaccinated Pennsylvania residents from Lancaster County have died from measles, marking the first U.S. measles deaths of 2026, state health officials said Tuesday. Pennsylvania has reported 393 cases across 28 counties, including 185 in Lancaster County, as the nationwide total reaches 2,777 — the highest annual case count in more than three decades. Health officials say declining vaccination rates are contributing to the outbreak, with Pennsylvania’s two-dose MMR coverage among kindergarteners falling to 93.2%, below the 95% level generally needed to prevent outbreaks.
Two children died in Texas last year, and one adult in New Mexico.
It’s the worst outbreak since 1991.
Secretary of Health, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is publicly encouraging US citizens to vaccinate themselves against the outbreak. But the long-term anti-vaccination campaigner is also being accused of blocking prevention efforts behind the scenes.
US media reports he has prevented CDC researchers from publishing an urgent health alert about emerging trends among measles-infected pregnant mothers.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has had enough.
“I am heartbroken to learn that a child in Lewis County has died after contracting measles,” she said in a statement earlier this week.
“[It’s] a devastating reminder of what’s at stake when Washington deliberately erodes decades of progress in protecting Americans from preventable illnesses.”
Details of the deceased child, including their exact age, are yet to be released.
Dr Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease physician in New York City, fears the bad old days of unrestrained measles are back.
“I don’t want to go back to that time,” he said.
“I think no pediatrician wants to go back to that time, and I think parents don’t want to go back to that time.”
Measles muddle
The success of the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine in suppressing measles in the United States since the 1990s has produced a generation of doctors who have never encountered the disease.
Medical researchers fear this means many cases are going unnoticed.
And that the risk to pregnant women isn’t fully appreciated.
Measles inflammation can lead to pneumonia in the mother. Premature birth, low birth weight, brain inflammation and pertussis can afflict the newborn child.
“Although hospitalisations and deaths receive the most attention … infections can also cause loss of hearing and vision and serious neurological outcomes,” warns the American Medical Association (AMA).
Given the threat the strain behind the US measles outbreak poses, CDC researchers have reportedly sought to issue a nationwide advisory through its long-established Health Alert Network.
But CDC director Erica Schwartz refused to sign off on the alert.
Another attempt to issue the warning through the organisation’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report has been delayed.
The Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) won’t say why.
But it has told US media that the warning is “moving through CDC’s scientific review and clearance process, which informs publication decisions and timing”.
Secretary Kennedy has dismissed the risk posed by measles.
“It’s very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person,” he insisted last year.
“It used to be when you and I were kids, everybody got measles,” he added.
Pennsylvania, which has so far experienced 77 infected pregnancies, has bypassed Secretary Kennedy’s CDC and published its own measles in pregnancy health alert.
One newborn baby reportedly died of congenital measles, contracted from its seriously ill mother. A six-week-old baby (too young to be vaccinated) died after contracting the disease.
The sixth death, confirmed on Thursday, is reported to be an unvaccinated 21-year-old from Jefferson County who died shortly after giving birth from measles-related organ failure.
“It’s unclear how many women have miscarried or delivered babies with congenital measles,” the Washington Post reports.
“The department said that state law prohibits it from releasing details of the outcomes of those pregnancies. There is no national database that tracks cases.”
New normal
New York declared a state disaster emergency early last month.
It has recorded 178 confirmed cases across more than a dozen county districts. Eight of those are within the densely populated New York City.
Of the 50 states of the Union, 11 now report having more than 100 measles patients. South Carolina is the second worst afflicted, with 700. Utah has 500.
Controversy over the measles death count continues to boil.
The CDC was reportedly ordered to delete two Pennsylvania deaths from its public toll in August.
“Available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles,” it explained at the time.
Secretary Kennedy had allegedly instructed Director Schwartz to reject the Pennsylvanian medical assessments. He insisted pre-existing conditions had caused the deaths.
It continues to lag behind figures being reported by independent states.
“I think this is a huge departure for CDC, where they have decided that the default state is that they don’t believe that a particular death is due to measles unless it meets some undefined standard,” says associate medical director of infection prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr Logan Grimes.
“That has never been the case in the past, and it doesn’t make any sense medically or epidemiologically.”
In August, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro criticised the Trump Administration’s anti-vaccination stance.
Secretary Kennedy retorted, claiming Pennsylvania may have “fabricated” the official death reports.
Meanwhile, medical statistics reveal just 1 per cent of recorded infections are among those fully covered by the MMR vaccine.
“With vaccination rates slipping in the US, some infectious disease experts are concerned that large outbreaks may become routine again in a country where measles was declared eliminated more than two decades ago,” the AMA warns.