The Pennsylvania Department of Health Wednesday announced the confirmation of the fifth measles-associated death in the state this year.
According to the health department, the victim was an unvaccinated resident of Lancaster County who had tested positive for measles.
The announcement comes as Pennsylvania is experiencing the worst measles outbreak in the country.
As of Wednesday, the state health department confirmed 943 measles cases in 39 of the state’s 67 counties, with 119 new cases reported in the last week. Of those cases, 176 involved hospitalizations. Vaccinated individuals accounted for just four of those 943 measles cases.
By comparison, there were 16 reported cases of measles in Pennsylvania in 2025, and six in 2024.
In August, two measles-related deaths involved infants in Lancaster County. The county coroner reported that the virus itself caused one of the deaths. They represented Pennsylvania’s first measles-related deaths in 35 years.
Earlier this month, an 18-year-old Mifflin County resident died from complications of measles, according to the Mifflin County Coroner’s Office. The cause was acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, a rare and severe neurological complication of measles, it said.
A 40-year-old Jefferson County woman also died from measles-related causes earlier this month, according to the county coroner.
Both of the adult victims were unvaccinated, according to the health department.
Amid Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak, Gov. Josh Shapiro has clashed publicly with US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine misinformation and his decision to change childhood vaccine schedules—something many doctors, healthcare experts, and government officials disagree with.
The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine has been administered to protect children and adults for decades. Two doses (one between 12 and 15 months of age, the second between ages 4 and 6) provide about 97% protection against measles, according to the American Medical Association.
While speaking recently at a conference of an anti-vaccine activist group he once chaired, Kennedy told the hundreds in attendance that they had a friend in President Donald Trump’s White House.
The nation eliminated the domestic spread of measles in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, but they have fallen in recent years to below the 95% coverage needed to prevent outbreaks. Meanwhile, measles infections have been surging in recent years.
