Measles cases in the United States hit a sobering milestone this week. As of Wednesday, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last updated its weekly count, 1,288 cases have been confirmed in 2025, more than any year since 1992. “And we’re just halfway through the year,” said Lisa Lee, a professor of population health sciences at Virginia Tech.
Like the common cold, measles spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It is highly transmissible: According to the CDC, if just one person has the disease, 9 out of 10 unvaccinated people nearby will catch it, too. “Measles is one of the most, if not the most, contagious disease we’ve ever seen,” Lee said. Symptoms such as a high fever, runny nose, cough and white spots on the inside of the mouth tend to develop first, followed by a distinctive measles rash with flat red spots.
Most people recover after a week or so. But measles sometimes leads to complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis that can be serious, particularly in young children, pregnant people and those with weakened immune systems. Before 1963, when a vaccine was introduced, the World Health Organization estimates the disease was responsible for 2.6 million deaths a year.
Measles was considered eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, at which point infections had not continuously spread for at least 12 months. More recently, the number of outbreaks has surged, probably fueled by a nationwide decline in childhood vaccinations. Most cases this year have occurred in unvaccinated children, a recent research letter published in JAMA noted.
Measles outbreaks can be especially alarming for parents of young children and those who are unable to get vaccinated for various reasons. To protect yourself and loved ones, here’s what health experts recommend.
1. Get the MMR if you or your children aren’t vaccinated.
Receiving two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is “the single most important thing that people can do to protect themselves,” said Jennifer Brull, a family physician in Fort Collins, Colorado, and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Children should get their first dose in this series at ages 12 through 15 months, with a second dose between 4 and 6 years, before entering school. (Alternatively, the CDC says if parents prefer, kids ages 1 to 12 years old may be given the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, or MMRV, vaccine, which also protects against chicken pox.)
After two doses, the MMR vaccine has a 97 percent success rate at preventing measles, making it extremely effective, said David Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at the Boston University School of Public Health and Medicine. “It’s actually one of the best vaccines we have for childhood illnesses.” Health insurance plans usually cover childhood immunizations, but if yours doesn’t or your child is uninsured, check to see if they are eligible for free vaccines through the Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program.
If your child didn’t get vaccinated according to the CDC’s recommended timetable, you can get them back on track. “There really is no problem getting a vaccine at any time,” said Ian Michelow, division head of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Connecticut Children’s. The CDC has a catch-up schedule for children 18 years and younger your provider can follow, and doing so “is very, very easy,” Michelow said.