The measles outbreak in South Carolina is still spreading. As of Dec. 18, 2025, the U.S. reported over 1,958 confirmed measles cases, the highest count since before the disease was declared eliminated in 2000.
In South Carolina, there are 138 confirmed cases since September, mostly among schoolchildren, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There are 168 people in quarantine. Nearly all of the confirmed cases are unvaccinated people, centered in Spartanburg County in the northwestern part of the state.
“As we identify new cases, and if those cases have susceptible contacts, that’s a new 21-day quarantine period,” Dr. Linda Bell, state epidemiologist for the state Department of Public Health, said Dec. 17 at what has become a weekly news briefing.
Earlier this year, in Gaines County, Texas and nearby counties, there were 762 measles cases and 2 deaths, mostly among Mennonite communities whose members had not gotten vaccinated.
Measles is an airborne virus, and one of the most contagious: a single individual could infect 18 others. The danger is that measles, though limited in number at the moment, is growing, and could become entrenched—or endemic— in certain communities and states, and begin to return and surge. The broad level of immunity against measles in some communities is falling. The rate of measles vaccination has dropped, as the anti-vaxxer movement—made up of anti-science Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Libertarian Party followers—inveighs against them.
Two doses of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine are highly effective at preventing measles.
