US at tipping point for return of endemic measles
The United States is at a tipping point for the return of endemic measles a quarter century after the disease was declared eradicated in the country, researchers warned on Thursday.
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At current US childhood vaccination rates, measles could return to spreading regularly at high levels, with an estimated 851,300 cases over the next 25 years, computer models used by the researchers suggest.
If rates of vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, shot were to decline by 10 per cent, an estimated 11.1 million cases of measles would result over 25 years, according to a report of the study in JAMA.
Measles has not been endemic, or continuously present, in the United States since 2000.
With vaccination rates dropping for MMR shots as well as for other childhood vaccines, outbreaks of preventable infectious diseases are increasing.
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There have been 10 reported outbreaks and at least 800 measles cases in the US so far in 2025, including 624 cases and two deaths in one Texas outbreak, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
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