US loses measles-free status after continued spread of the disease: Report

Résumé détaillé

The reported decision by the Americas branch of the World Health Organization comes as the US battles the highest number of measles cases it has seen in more than three decades.

The reported decision by the Americas branch of the World Health Organization comes as the US battles the highest number of measles cases it has seen in more than three decades.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has revoked the United States' measles-elimination status, ending a 26-year run after determining the country failed to halt continuous transmission of the highly contagious virus for more than a year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday (Nov 13).

The international health body did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the report, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The reported decision by the Americas branch of the World Health Organization (WHO) comes as the US battles the highest number of measles cases it has seen in more than three decades.

Some 7,500 people in the US have been infected with measles and 13 have died since 2025. That period coincides with falling immunisation rates and rising vaccine hesitancy under US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., who has for years spread doubts, without scientific evidence, about the safety of measles vaccines.

As part of its evaluation, PAHO reviewed epidemiological and laboratory evidence submitted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine ⁠whether the same strain of measles had been circulating in the United States uninterrupted for 12 months or longer, a sign of local transmission rather than imported cases.

Canada, Spain and the UK recently lost measles-elimination status after review by WHO experts. The US dropped out of WHO but remains a member of PAHO, its Americas branch.

Dr Erica Schwartz, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters in an interview before the decision that if the US lost measles elimination, the agency would be doing "the same exact thing," which entails working with states to encourage immunisation.

As of Thursday, 5,182 confirmed cases of measles had been reported in 2026 to the US…

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