The total number of measles cases confirmed so far this year in Pennsylvania has topped 1,000, the state Department of Health announced Monday, making it the largest state outbreak in more than three decades.
With Allegheny County confirming its first case of measles, state health officials have now confirmed 1,005 measles cases in 40 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, with 106 new cases reported over the last week. Vaccinated individuals have accounted for just four of the state’s 1,005 measles cases, and 198 cases have involved hospitalizations.
By comparison, Pennsylvania reported 16 measles cases in 2025 and six in 2024.
According to the health department, Lancaster County has the most confirmed measles cases with 391, followed by Mifflin (118) and Chester (84) counties.
Last week, the state health department announced Pennsylvania’s fifth measles-related death in 2026, an unvaccinated resident of Lancaster County who had tested positive for measles.
Officials confirmed two measles-related deaths in September: an 18-year-old Mifflin County resident and a 40-year-old Jefferson County woman. Both individuals were unvaccinated, according to the health department.
In August, two measles-related deaths—the state’s first in 35 years—involved infants in Lancaster County. County Coroner Stephen Diamantoni, an elected Republican, initially cast uncertainty on the cause of death, before confirming that the virus itself caused one of the deaths. After Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled there to announce the deaths, Diamantoni claimed that state health officials never attempted to consult him regarding the cases. But according to a new report from The Philadelphia Inquirer, emails show that they did, repeatedly.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly begun to acknowledge Pennsylvania’s measles-related deaths.
For weeks, the CDC—which is overseen by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump administration appointee with a history of raising alarms about established vaccines—did not count any deaths on its measles data dashboard, instead saying it was seeking more information. That changed two weeks ago, when one death was finally counted, and again last week when a second was added to the agency’s tally.
Gov. Shapiro has clashed publicly with Kennedy 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.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
