As measles cases climb, these 9 diseases threaten comebacks
When it comes to infectious diseases, measles is “the canary in the coal mine,” one expert said.
Washington Post reports:
By Kathleen Felton
“There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of [the measles cases] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
Measles is the most contagious disease known and can be serious, especially for young children. It spreads when a person coughs or sneezes and can cause a distinctive rash with flat red spots, along with fever and upper respiratory symptoms. More severe complications sometimes develop, such as pneumonia and encephalitis. Before a vaccine was available, measles was responsible for an estimated 2.6 million deaths a year.
Two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella or measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) vaccines — MMR and MMRV, respectively — usually provide lifetime protection against measles. At least 95 percent of the population needs to be immune to achieve herd immunity, which is critical for protecting those who can’t be vaccinated, such as children younger than 12 months. But plunging vaccination rates allow outbreaks to occur, and even states that have vaccination rates above 90 percent are experiencing outbreaks.
“We’re starting to see this tipping point where these outbreaks are lasting longer, they’re bigger, they’re more frequent,” said Nathan Lo, an infectious diseases physician and scientist at Stanford Medicine. Some experts, including Lo, worry the U.S. will lose its measles elimination status this year, a designation it has had since 2000. Measles is considered eliminated in a geographic region when it is no longer circulating naturally. A number of countries have lost this status over the past few months, including the United Kingdom and Spain.
When vaccination rates decrease, the most highly contagious diseases pop up first, “and that’s why we call measles the canary in the coal mine,” said Wallace. Other vaccine-preventable infectious diseases could follow, the World Health Organization warned in a joint statement with UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, last year. Some already show a worrisome upward trend.
“Measles is the most contagious disease that we have, period,” Wallace said. “So as soon as we start to see measles, we know that the [vaccination] rates in that county or state are starting to drop, and so other diseases will follow on to that, but they just take longer to rip through the communities.”
Washington Post reports:
By Kathleen Felton
“There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of [the measles cases] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
Measles is the most contagious disease known and can be serious, especially for young children. It spreads when a person coughs or sneezes and can cause a distinctive rash with flat red spots, along with fever and upper respiratory symptoms. More severe complications sometimes develop, such as pneumonia and encephalitis. Before a vaccine was available, measles was responsible for an estimated 2.6 million deaths a year.
Two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella or measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) vaccines — MMR and MMRV, respectively — usually provide lifetime protection against measles. At least 95 percent of the population needs to be immune to achieve herd immunity, which is critical for protecting those who can’t be vaccinated, such as children younger than 12 months. But plunging vaccination rates allow outbreaks to occur, and even states that have vaccination rates above 90 percent are experiencing outbreaks.
“We’re starting to see this tipping point where these outbreaks are lasting longer, they’re bigger, they’re more frequent,” said Nathan Lo, an infectious diseases physician and scientist at Stanford Medicine. Some experts, including Lo, worry the U.S. will lose its measles elimination status this year, a designation it has had since 2000. Measles is considered eliminated in a geographic region when it is no longer circulating naturally. A number of countries have lost this status over the past few months, including the United Kingdom and Spain.
When vaccination rates decrease, the most highly contagious diseases pop up first, “and that’s why we call measles the canary in the coal mine,” said Wallace. Other vaccine-preventable infectious diseases could follow, the World Health Organization warned in a joint statement with UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, last year. Some already show a worrisome upward trend.
“Measles is the most contagious disease that we have, period,” Wallace said. “So as soon as we start to see measles, we know that the [vaccination] rates in that county or state are starting to drop, and so other diseases will follow on to that, but they just take longer to rip through the communities.”
