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Scientists Find Measles Likely To Become Endemic in the US Over Next 20 Years
https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-say-measles-likely-to-become-endemic-in-us-polio-diphtheria-rubella/No paywall link
https://archive.li/FNSVb
WITH VACCINATION RATES among US kindergarteners steadily declining in recent years and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowing to reexamine the childhood vaccination schedule, measles and other previously eliminated infectious diseases could become more common. A new analysis published today by epidemiologists at Stanford University attempts to quantify those impacts.
Using a computer model, the authors found that with current state-level vaccination rates, measles could reestablish itself and become consistently present in the United States in the next two decades. Their model predicted this outcome in 83 percent of simulations. If current vaccination rates stay the same, the model estimated that the US could see more than 850,000 cases, 170,000 hospitalizations, and 2,500 deaths over the next 25 years. The results appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“I don’t see this as speculative. It is a modeling exercise, but it’s based on good numbers,” says Jeffrey Griffiths, professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, who was not involved in the study. “The big point is that measles is very likely to become endemic quickly if we continue in this way.”
The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000 after decades of successful vaccination campaigns. Elimination means there has been no chain of disease transmission inside a country lasting longer than 12 months. The current measles outbreak in Texas, however, could put that status at risk. With more than 600 cases, 64 hospitalizations, and two deaths, it’s the largest outbreak the state has seen since 1992, when 990 cases were linked to a single outbreak. Nationally, the US has seen 800 cases of measles in 2025 so far, the most since 2019. Last year, there were 285 cases.
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