WASHINGTON -- Measles cases continue to rise in the U.S., as the country confronts the highest number of virus cases in decades.
Back in July, the U.S. confirmed the highest number of measles cases in more than three decades, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since then, there have been around 300 more confirmed cases in the three months since the country broke that milestone.
At least 1,563 cases have been reported across 42 states as of Oct. 7, the CDC reports.
For comparison, there were only 285 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. in 2024. This year's spike is a 500% increase from last year's numbers, with more than two months left in the year.
The last time the U.S. saw more measles cases was 33 years ago, in 1992. That year saw 2,126 confirmed measles cases.
Eight years later, in 2000, the World Health Organization said the disease had been eliminated in the country. A disease being eliminated means that it isn't spreading in the country, and can only be contracted by contact with somebody who has it outside of the U.S.
Health officials credited the historic milestone 25 years ago to rising vaccination rates, as more infants received the shots, starving the disease of available hosts. But after success at the turn of the century, U.S. vaccination numbers have begun to slip, especially in rural areas.
This year's outbreaks, some of them interconnected, started in February in under vaccinated communities in West Texas. At least three people have died -- two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico -- and dozens of people have been hospitalized.
Public health experts maintain the true case count may be higher than state health departments have confirmed. The CDC's website acknowledges that probable measles cases have been reported, but doesn't count them in its tally until they have been confirmed.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that can cause high fever, rash, cough and red eyes. The most obvious sign of a measles infection is the rash, which is usually one of the first symptoms to appear. But symptoms can develop over time, and health officials warn that patients are contagious for days after they begin developing.
The disease is known to cause life-threatening complications, such as brain inflammation or pneumonia.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, measles is highly contagious for anybody without a vaccine.
"Experts estimate that if one person in a room of unvaccinated people has measles, 9 out of 10 people in the room will catch it," the clinic notes on its website.
There is no cure for measles, which usually passes once the body's infection has fought it off. There is a vaccine that provides lifelong protection.
Most children receive the first dose of the two-shot treatment between a year and 15 months old.
But those numbers are going down.
Around 92.5% of 2024-25 kindergartners got their required measles-mumps-rubella shots, U.S. education officials said earlier this year. That number is down slightly from the previous year. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccination rate was 95% -- the level that makes it unlikely that a single infection will spark a disease cluster or outbreak.
State and federal leaders have for years kept funding stagnant for local public health departments' vaccination programs that are tasked with reversing the trend.
"What we're seeing with measles is a little bit of a 'canary in a coal mine,'" said Lauren Gardner, leader of Johns Hopkins University's independent measles and COVID tracking databases. "It's indicative of a problem that we know exists with vaccination attitudes in this county and just, I think, likely to get worse."