Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania have died from measles as a large outbreak continues to spread in the Keystone State, health officials said on Tuesday. The deaths were the first measles-related deaths this year in the United States, The New York Times reported.
Both people who died were residents of Lancaster County, according to The Washington Post. The Pennsylvania Health Department declined to release the victims’ ages or other information, citing their privacy and those of their families, the newspaper reported.
“My deepest sympathies are with the loved ones who are facing this unimaginable loss,” state Health Secretary Debra Bogen said in a statement. “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.”
Pennsylvania has confirmed 393 measles cases in 28 counties this year, including 86 during the past week, the Post reported. Nearly half of the cases occurred in Lancaster County. According to the Times, 70 people have been hospitalized, and more than a third of the reported cases in the state involved children.
Gov. Josh Shapiro said that every confirmed case happened to someone who had not been vaccinated, according to the Post.
“We hope and we pray that those deaths will be the last,” Shapiro said during a news conference Tuesday.
A case of measles has also been confirmed in western Pennsylvania, WPXI reported.
A statement from Michael Fiorina, the chief medical officer at Independence Health System, verified a laboratory-confirmed case of measles in Butler County, according to the television station.
In late July, the number of confirmed measles cases in the United States topped the total reported for all of 2025, ABC News reported, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The news outlet reported that last year’s total of 2,289 reported cases of measles was the highest number in more than 30 years. However, the 2,777 cases reported so far this year is the most since 1991, CDC data shows.
Two school-aged children and one adult died last year from measles-related complications, the Times reported. They were the first deaths in the U.S. in a decade, according to the newspaper.
“These five deaths that have occurred since 2025 are extremely, extremely rare in the modern era,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease doctor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the Times. “They’re also a harbinger of what is happening as this virus takes hold again in the United States.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, measles is a contagious, vaccine-preventable disease. Symptoms include fever, cough, congestion and pink eye.
Most people recover from measles in about 10 days.
“It usually doesn’t cause long-term medical issues. But measles can be serious and even deadly,” the Mayo Clinic noted on its website. “This is especially true for children younger than age 5 and people with severely weakened immune systems.
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