A measles outbreak in South Carolina is accelerating, with hundreds of individuals forced to quarantine. An epidemiologist with the state’s Department of Public Health attributed the acceleration to Thanksgiving travel and a lack of vaccinations.
The state has recorded 111 measles cases during an ongoing outbreak in South Carolina’s Upstate region, including 27 between Friday and Tuesday. Authorities traced 16 cases to a church in the state’s northwest, according to The Washington Post.
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Additionally, 20 cases involved children under 5, and 75 more were reported in children between ages 5 and 17.
Of those infected, 105 were unvaccinated, and three were partially vaccinated, according to state epidemiologist Linda Bell. As of Tuesday, at least 254 people were in quarantine, with 16 in isolation.
“Accelerating is an accurate term,” Bell said. “That is a spike in cases we are concerned about.”
She added that South Carolina has “lower than hoped for” vaccine coverage.
US measles ‘elimination status’
The surge of measles cases in South Carolina comes as 2025 was already seeing the highest number of cases since the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1,900 measles cases across 42 states have been reported so far this year.
More than half of the cases occurred among children, The Post reported.
Some of those cases could put the country at risk of losing its World Health Organization “elimination status.”
If one strain of the measles has sustained transmission nationwide for 12 months, WHO revokes the status. Canada lost that status last month after a separate outbreak persisted for over a year.
Since January, one specific strain of the measles that started in Texas has spread across Utah and Arizona. It’s unclear whether that strain is the same as the one causing the South Carolina outbreak. However, should the virus continue to spread through the end of January 2026, the U.S. could lose its WHO status.
There is no specific treatment for measles, and the CDC says one or two of every 1,000 children diagnosed are projected to die.
