Three more children have been infected with measles in New York as case numbers rise nationally and across the globe.
The state Department of Health confirmed the infections, all three of which were in children under five years old living in Orange County, officials said on Thursday. The new cases bring the state’s total to seven so far this year, three of whom were in the city.
New York sees cases of measles, a highly contagious respiratory illness, every year; last year 14 were detected across the state. But the new reports come as rates have surged nationally in the first four months of the year; 935 cases have been reported so far in 2025, compared to just 285 cases in all of 2024, according to data kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There have been 121 hospitalizations this year, including 66 children under 5, the data shows.
Measles immunization has become a political flashpoint among vaccine skeptics. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has previously promoted a debunked theory that the vaccine is linked to autism, has sought to downplay the recent outbreaks while promoting alternatives to the vaccine. Kennedy acknowledged the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine in the clearest terms last month, posting on X that “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”
In a lawsuit filed Monday against the Trump administration over its gutting of the Department of Health and Human Services, New York and 19 other states said the closure of CDC regional offices and the firing of its communications staff have hampered the federal government’s ability to detect and warn about measles outbreaks. The cuts have forced the state’s Wadsworth Center, where the new cases were identified and one of a handful of public health labs equipped to identify and track rare diseases, to fill in the gaps, according to the lawsuit.
The state Health Department is coordinating with the Orange County Health Department to monitor the cases and has notified the CDC.
Measles is spread through coughing, sneezing and contact with infected surfaces. It can cause rash and fever and weaken the immune system, which can lead to other health complications. The state Health Department is urging residents to stay up to date with inoculations.
The disease has killed three people so far this year, equivalent to the number of deaths recorded in the last two decades, including two unvaccinated school-age children in Texas, the state with the highest number of cases, according to the CDC. Just 2% of people infected this year were vaccinated.
The politicization of the measles vaccine and the promotion of unconfirmed alternatives have helped contribute to its resurgence, according to Dr. Syra Madad, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s Belfer Center and the chief biopreparedness officer for New York City Health + Hospitals, the city’s public hospital network.
“We were hoping to have this disease relegated to our history books but it’s coming back,” she told Crain’s in a recent interview.
All three of the Orange County children had recently travelled internationally, according to the Health Department. There are no known exposures outside the children’s immediate family members, the department said in a statement.
Orange County has the fourth-lowest measles vaccination rate outside the five boroughs, according to data kept by the state Health Department, which does not include New York City numbers. As of the start of this year, just shy of 65% of Orange County residents had at least one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella immunization by age 2, the data shows. The statewide rate outside the city is 81%.
