Two unvaccinated people die of measles in US state of Pennsylvania

For context, the US state of Pennsylvania has documented that two residents died from measles, marking the first fatal cases this year of the disease that had previously been largely eradicated in the United States.

Key points

• Three individuals died from a measles outbreak in 2025 that began in West Texas and spread to New Mexico.
• At least 2, 777 confirmed cases of measles have been recorded in the US thus far this year.
• We all thought the Texas outbreak and the deaths there last year would be a wake-up call.
• Trump and Kennedy, additionally known as RFK Jr, have pushed debunked claims linking vaccinations with autism and purged administration health panels tasked with making recommendations on vaccine policy.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Department of Health remarked on Tuesday that both of the deceased were unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County, but did not share further details due to privacy reservations.

"Because measles was largely eliminated in the Commonwealth for more than three decades, people are not familiar with this disease and don't fully understand the potential severity of the illness, " remarked Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Debra Bogen.

In practice, the US is facing the most severe measles outbreak in years as vaccination rates drop below levels that medical experts say are necessary to confer herd immunity. That decline has been partly driven by an anti-vaccination movement that includes prominent members of the Trump administration, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

At least 2, 777 confirmed cases of measles have been recorded in the US thus far this year. Pennsylvania has been among the hardest hit by the outbreak, recording 393 measles cases throughout 28 different counties.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month calling for the number of recommended vaccines for children to be reduced, continuing a push to roll back decades of scientific consensus on the safety and efficacy of vaccinations.

"We all thought the Texas outbreak and the deaths there last year would be a wake-up call. Then we had the outbreaks in South Carolina and Utah, " Dr Angela Dunn, former Utah state epidemiologist and previously a division director in infectious disease response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, informed the Reuters news service.

For now, two unvaccinated people die of measles in US state of Pennsylvania remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.