Illinois health officials have warned of a possible measles exposure at Palos Heights-based Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital, CBS News reported Oct. 19.
There have been 1,596 measles cases in the U.S. this year.
Here are seven recent measles updates:
1. The Cook County Department of Public Health said an unvaccinated child with measles walked through the main hospital lobby and a suite in the surgical and procedural service area on their way to outpatient testing. Measles can linger in the air for two hours after someone with an active infection leaves, meaning anyone who visited the lobby, suite or outpatient testing shortly after the child could have been exposed, according to the report. The health department is encouraging anyone who may have been exposed to check their vaccination status or receive the vaccine.
2. South Carolina’s measles outbreak has grown by 15 cases this week after exposure at a school, NBC News reported. Currently, 139 students are in quarantine across the state.
3. A quarantine for 122 people in Ohio is expected to end Oct. 24 after five cases were reported. A 1-year-old was hospitalized with developing pneumonia.
4. Anchorage, Alaska, reported its second case of measles after a traveler arrived in the city Oct. 13 and was diagnosed with the virus. The individual isolated after they arrived, but may have exposed people in airports in Anchorage, Seattle and Las Vegas, Alaska Public Media reported Oct. 20.
5. Another outbreak that sickened more than 100 people occurred along the border dividing Utah and Arizona. It began in August and is the second-largest cluster of cases in the U.S. this year, The New York Times reported. The majority of cases are among unvaccinated people.
6. Epidemiologists told the Times that the current scale and spread of cases resembles the large outbreak of the 1990s, before national immunization campaigns and school vaccine mandates.
7. There have been 44 reported outbreaks with at least three cases this year, compared to 16 outbreaks in 2024. One in every 8 people with measles will be hospitalized, and two children have died this year of measles, the first such deaths in a decade, the Times reported.
