U.S. Measles Cases Top 2,000 by Early June as 2026 Approaches Last Year’s Total

The United States has recorded 2,030 confirmed measles cases as of June 4, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pushing the country past 2,000 cases by early June and bringing 2026 close to the full-year total reported last year.

The CDC, whose measles data was updated Friday, said the figures are preliminary and updated weekly. Of the 2,030 confirmed cases, 2,020 were reported by 40 jurisdictions. The agency said 93% of cases, or 1,890 of them, were linked to outbreaks, underscoring how heavily the spread has been concentrated in clusters rather than isolated infections.

The new count does not exceed 2025, when the CDC reported 2,288 confirmed measles cases for the full year. But it puts 2026 on track to approach that level only about halfway through the year. The scale is stark compared with recent history: the CDC reported 13 cases in 2020, 49 in 2021, 121 in 2022, 59 in 2023 and 285 in 2024, for a combined total of 527 over those five years. That means 2026’s case count so far is nearly four times the combined total from 2020 through 2024. CDC and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report data also showed three measles-related deaths in 2025, the first U.S. measles deaths in about a decade.

Public health officials have long warned that sustained outbreaks could threaten the nation’s measles elimination status, which the CDC says the United States achieved in 2000. Elimination does not mean the virus disappeared entirely; it means there was no continuous endemic transmission in the country. Measles remains highly contagious, and outbreaks tend to spread in communities with lower vaccination rates. The CDC says two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine are about 97% effective against measles. National kindergarten coverage for the MMR vaccine has also slipped, falling from 95.2% in the 2019-2020 school year to 92.5% in 2024-2025, below the 95% level often cited as important for community protection.

The broader regional picture has also raised concern. The Pan American Health Organization has documented a rise in measles across the Americas in 2026, a trend that can increase the risk of imported cases seeding additional outbreaks in the United States.

The new CDC milestone quickly drew political reaction. The Democratic National Committee highlighted the case total in a Friday post and criticized President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was confirmed and sworn in as the nation’s top health official in February 2025. DNC spokesperson Jaelin O’Halloran said in the post that “Donald Trump and RFK Jr.’s assault on Americans’ health and safety has caused outbreaks of preventable diseases and dysfunction in our public health system.” That criticism is partisan and not established by the CDC’s case count alone.

Kennedy said at a congressional hearing, “We’ve done better at preventing measles than any country in the world.”

The CDC updates its national measles tally each week, meaning the total could rise further as additional cases are confirmed.