Surging Measles Cases Spur Vaccine Push by Local Officials

State and local health leaders are urging people to get vaccinated as the threat of measles looms over their jurisdictions, a call that comes as the US’ status as having eliminating measles is on the line.

Officials from Baltimore, North Carolina, and Texas’ Dallas and Lubbock counties convened in a Wednesday press call to warn about the rapid spread of measles across their states and to discuss efforts to curb infection rates.

They say infections could easily be prevented by vaccination, a message they say is complicated by messages coming out of the Trump administration’s US Department of Health and Human Services seen as unnecessarily critical of immunization.

Outbreaks “are not inevitable, but unfortunately now I think they’re predictable,” said Katherine Wells, director of public health for Lubbock, Texas. “When vaccination rates fall, measles will find those gaps.”

Wells’ and the other officials’ comments came a year after the beginning of a Texas measles outbreak. The remarks also come a day after South Carolina reported 88 new confirmed cases of measles, bringing the total of 646 since the outbreak began in October.

The US achieved the status of having eliminating measles in 2000 after a vaccination effort. That status, however, could be dropped should the Pan American Health Organization—which is scheduled for an emergency meeting in April—determines public health campaigns can’t keep the virus under control.

Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, the group that hosted the call, said the over 2,200 confirmed measles cases recorded by the US in 2025 marks “the highest number in more than three decades.”

“More than 90% of those with measles were either unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown,” Juliano said. Juliano noted that national measles, mumps, rubella vaccine coverage among kindergartners is 92.5%, “well below the 95% level needed to prevent sustained spread.”

Michelle Taylor, commissioner of health for Baltimore City Health Department, noted that 98.5% of students in Baltimore City Public Schools “were up to date with all of their Maryland required vaccinations.”

“Without this vaccine, we would not be able to protect Baltimore City’s children to our fullest extent,” Taylor said.

Zack Moore, state epidemiologist at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, said “we’ve been in close communication with our colleagues in South Carolina, as they’ve been working to try to mitigate and contain a large outbreak that’s happening centered around Spartanburg County, South Carolina.”

And while he said North Carolina has “fairly good vaccination coverage” compared with nearby states, he noted that coverage rates are “very low” in some communities, and that some schools have “upwards of 70% religious exemption rates for vaccination.”

“We have a lot of communities that are very susceptible, if a measles case lands there, to spread. And that is, unfortunately, what we’re starting to see now in North Carolina,” Moore said.