CDC acknowledges one U.S. measles death after omitting Pa. data from its dashboard for weeks
For weeks, the CDC omitted measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania from its dashboard. Now it has acknowledged one death from the highly contagious disease, but did not say where it occurred.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that one person died this year in the measles outbreaks it tracks nationally through an unannounced update to its website Wednesday.
Pennsylvania has reported four measles-associated deaths, but the CDC for weeks omitted them from an online dashboard.
State officials are “not aware of which death the CDC is citing,” a spokesperson said in a statement Thursday, referring questions to the federal agency.
Federal health officials did not specify where the death reported on the CDC dashboard occurred. On the dashboard, they said the number was “subject to change” and the agency will update its reporting of deaths “as additional information becomes available and relevant reviews are completed.”
The agency also said it is working to develop a standard case definition of measles deaths with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
The update came after the National Center for Health Statistics told the CDC that it had received “a report from a state of a measles-related death,” federal health officials said in a statement late Wednesday.
“Through its standard process, NCHS verified that the death occurred and that measles was listed as the underlying cause of death. This is now reflected on the CDC website,” the statement said.
Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak, currently the largest in the nation, has sickened more than 800 people, with state health officials reporting more than 100 new cases in the last week alone.
Lancaster County, the center of the outbreak, has confirmed more than 300 cases, and nearly 80 people have been diagnosed with measles in Chester County, the only Philadelphia-area county with cases in the current outbreak.
The four measles-associated deaths reported in the state represent the highest death toll linked to the highly contagious disease in more than three decades.
Measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania
The state announced its first two measles-associated deaths, both in unvaccinated Lancaster County residents, in late August, almost immediately sparking a clash between state and federal officials over how to characterize the deaths.
Two more deaths were reported this month. One involved an unvaccinated 18-year-old in Mifflin County who died from a serious neurological complication of measles. And measles led to the death of an unvaccinated 40-year-old woman in Jefferson County with severe respiratory conditions.
Both deaths were confirmed by local coroners, both Republicans.
The Lancaster deaths, later disclosed as two infants in the Amish community, drew widespread scrutiny.
The county coroner later said he did not believe measles caused one of the deaths, involving an infant with a lacerated spleen who tested positive for measles, though physicians have noted measles can weaken the organ and make it more likely to rupture.
The coroner, an elected Republican, said a second death, in another infant with a fatal genetic condition, was caused by measles.
Pennsylvania defines a “measles-associated death” as one that occurs within 30 days of symptom onset in a person with clinical evidence of infection and a positive laboratory test, and who did not die of another unrelated cause, like a car crash.
All four deaths recorded in Pennsylvania meet that definition, state officials say.
Announcing the deaths in Lancaster, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro criticized President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., saying he has spread misinformation about vaccine safety that’s contributed to a decline in measles vaccination rates across Pennsylvania.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, said Shapiro was politicizing the issue. Kennedy wrote on social media that the governor’s administration may have “fabricated” the Lancaster County deaths, although he later acknowledged that one death was caused by measles.
And until Wednesday, the CDC had not acknowledged any 2026 measles deaths on its data dashboard for weeks.
The agency had briefly noted two measles-associated deaths on the dashboard the weekend after Pennsylvania officials confirmed the two Lancaster County deaths, the Washington Post has reported.
Then, within a day, the deaths were removed from the website and replaced with an asterisk.
The CDC initially posted an explanation saying it left the deaths off the dashboard because “available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles.”
The agency later updated its asterisk explainer to note that the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) “does not currently have any death records from 2026 that indicate measles is the underlying cause.”
Using the NCHS to record deaths from measles is a departure from the CDC’s standard protocol. Former CDC officials say the agency has used a different system, the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, to confirm deaths, and does not typically challenge routine disease surveillance from states.
It can take weeks for the NCHS system to record a death.
Delaying death reporting, experts have said, could affect efforts to contain Pennsylvania’s outbreak.
Staff writer Sarah Gantz contributed to this article.
