US Loses Measles-Elimination Status After 26 Years, Health Body Reportedly Decides

The Pan American Health Organization has revoked the United States' measles-elimination status after 26 years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, November 13, 2026, because the country failed to stop continuous transmission of the virus for more than a year. The loss puts the U.S. outside the group of countries considered free of the disease, at a time when it faces its highest measles caseload in more than three decades.

Some 7,500 people in the U.S. have been infected and 13 have died since 2025, according to the report as relayed by Reuters. PAHO, the Americas branch of the World Health Organization, did not immediately answer a Reuters request for comment; the report cited people familiar with the matter. In its evaluation, PAHO reviewed epidemiological and laboratory evidence to determine whether one strain had circulated uninterrupted for 12 months or longer, a sign of local spread rather than imported cases.

Newsmax, on the right, leads with the revocation itself, using a headline that labels it a Report and stressing the 26-year span and the failure to halt continuous transmission. Its excerpt carries no mention of case totals or political figures. NPR, on the left, frames the story as a status loss “according to researchers with direct knowledge of the deliberations” at PAHO, and its headline attributes the news to global health authorities. Both sides agree on the core fact that the status has been lost; the difference lies in sourcing and emphasis, with NPR pointing to researchers inside the process and Newsmax to the Journal's report. The Hindu, an alternative outlet, adds a distinct angle: it links falling immunization rates and rising vaccine hesitancy to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who it says has spread doubts without scientific evidence.