As cases rise, the US will no longer be considered measles-free.
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, November 11: In light of the rise in measles cases in the US, the Pan American Health Organization will consider whether to no longer designate the US as a measles-free country at a meeting this month.
Reuters reported on the 11th that as a regional agency of the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization asked all 35 members in the Americas to submit reports on the measles situation in their country for review by an expert committee. The expert committee will submit relevant recommendations to the annual meeting of the Pan American Health Organization held in the United States, after which the director of the organization Yalves Barbosa will make the final decision and inform the relevant members.
The spokesperson of the organization said on the 11th that in addition to the United States, Mexico and Bolivia were also included in the watch list due to ongoing measles epidemics. The annual meeting of the Pan American Health Organization is scheduled to end on the 13th, and relevant decisions are expected to be announced early next week.
For a country or region to be considered measles-free by the World Health Organization, it must not have locally transmitted cases of the same strain for more than 12 consecutive months. However, so far in 2025, the number of measles cases in the United States has exceeded the total number of cases in the 25 years between 2000 and 2024, with nearly 7,500 cases. Among them, 11 deaths were reported by the federal and state health departments. The number of measles cases this year is more than double that of 2025. As of the 5th of this month, there have been more than 5,100 cases, affecting 47 countries and regions.
Experts believe that the revival of measles in the US is connected to the rise of the "anti-vaccine" movement in the US. US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to face criticism as the number of measles infections continues to rise. He has publicly questioned the effectiveness of vaccines, and vaccination rates in the US have continued to decline since he took office.
Dimitri Zaskarakis, director of the National Center for Vaccines and Respiratory Diseases at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who resigned shortly after Kennedy took office, said the loss of measles-free status is a sign that the US public health system is beginning to collapse on a larger scale. "This is an important indication that our foundation (public health) is broken."