Child Dies of Measles in New York as US Reaches Six Deaths in 2026
The state records its first death from the disease in more than 30 years; the country has 4,852 cases this year, double the 2025 total.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
A child died of measles in Lewis County, in upstate New York. It is the first death from the disease in the state in more than 30 years and the sixth in the United States in 2026, the highest number since 1992, g1 reported.
The death occurred four weeks after the state declared an emergency over the outbreak, which affects areas of New York and neighboring states. According to the local government, there are 178 cases this year, 8 of them in New York City. Nationwide, there are already 4,852 cases, compared with 2,289 in 2025.
g1 points to a discrepancy in the numbers: the CDC, the main US public health agency, recognizes only three of the six deaths. The difference arose after pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a critic of the MMR vaccine, who questioned the link between the first deaths and the disease.
Experts interviewed for the report warn of the risk of a return to a scenario similar to the pre-vaccination era. To stop the virus from circulating, vaccination coverage must exceed 95%.
In 2011, 21 of the 50 US states reached that level; today only 10 do. An estimate using CDC data indicates that 1.7 million children have gone unvaccinated over the past seven years.