By Mariam Sunny and Siddhi Mahatole
Aug 25 (Reuters) – Two Pennsylvania residents died after contracting measles, health officials said on Tuesday, the first such deaths this year in the United States, which is contending with the highest number of cases of the highly infectious disease in more than three decades as vaccination rates drop.
Both people were unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which did not release additional details, citing privacy concerns.
The deaths come about two weeks after President Donald Trump unveiled an executive order that criticized the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, calling for the long-used combination shot, which provides 97% protection against measles, to be split up into three separate shots.
Trump, contrary to all scientific evidence and decades of safe and effective use, said of the MMR vaccine, that there is a “possibility they are quite lethal” together.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and CDC offered condolences to the families and said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which HHS oversees, was working closely with state and local health departments.
“The MMR vaccine provides the most effective protection against measles and helps prevent its spread,” HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard said in a statement.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has for decades argued that the MMR shot and other vaccines are linked to an increased risk of autism, a theory that scientists say has been thoroughly refuted by studies examining millions of children over many years.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said he declined an offer from Kennedy on Tuesday to provide federal assistance for the state’s measles outbreak response.
“I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities,” Shapiro said during a news conference.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before taking his post in the Trump administration, is now overseeing a series of studies at his Health and Human Services department examining vaccine safety, including whether they are linked to autism.
Trump and Kennedy’s statements and policies have sown confusion and distrust of vaccines, experts said, and have helped lead to the resurgence of a preventable disease that the U.S. had eradicated more than 20 years ago.
PUBLIC HEALTH REVERSAL
Two unvaccinated children died from measles last year in Texas, the first U.S. measles deaths in more than a decade and a stark reversal of one of the country’s major public-health achievements.
“To hear about the absolute tragedy of people dying from a vaccine-preventable disease again is wrong,” said Angela Dunn, former Utah state epidemiologist and previously a CDC division director in infectious disease response.
“We already know how to stop the spread of measles, and it is through making sure that the communities that are most vulnerable understand that the vaccine is safe,” Dunn said.
Pennsylvania has been one of the hardest hit states this year, with 393 measles cases across 28 counties so far.
Lancaster County, in the southeastern part of the state, has had 185 cases, but these were the first measles deaths recorded in the state in 35 years.
The United States has had 2,777 confirmed cases so far this year of a disease that had been largely eradicated in the country, a reflection of declining vaccination rates and policies under Kennedy, who has for decades spread misinformation about vaccine safety.
Kennedy in January unveiled a slimmed-down federal childhood vaccine schedule that cut the number of recommended inoculations from 17 to 11, but still included the MMR shot.
Those changes were blocked by a federal judge in March. Trump’s August executive order called for similar changes, but the administration is still bound by the federal ruling.
“One might think that by now, after more than a year and a half of ongoing measles transmission and outbreaks in the United States, we would be seeing more messaging and support from the federal government,” said William Moss, an epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Unfortunately, we’re not.”
FALLING VACCINATION RATES
Vaccination rates of 95% or higher can prevent outbreaks by creating what is known as herd immunity that protects people unable to be vaccinated.
Two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella shot provide 97% protection against the virus. Children typically first receive the vaccine when they are 12 to 15 months old and again at 4 to 6 years of age.
According to Pennsylvania Department of Health data for the 2025-2026 school year, 93.2% of Pennsylvania kindergarten-age children had received the required two doses of MMR vaccine, down from 93.7% during the 2024-2025 school year.
In Lancaster County, 87.6% of kindergarten students received the required two MMR doses during the 2025-2026 school year.
The federal government and state health officials need to try to identify communities that have low measles vaccination coverage, said Moss. “Many people in this country and in certain communities have a mistrust of measles vaccine partly fed by misinformation and disinformation.”
The number of U.S. measles cases in 2026 is the highest in a single year since the major resurgence between 1989 and 1991, when 55,000 infections and 123 deaths were recorded.
South Carolina earlier this year experienced the nation’s largest measles outbreak with nearly 1,000 infections over six months. It was declared over in April.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny and Siddhi Mahatole in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Chad Terhune and Christy Santhosh; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
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