A child died after contracting measles in Lewis County, northern New York State. It is the first death associated with the disease registered in the State for more than thirty years. The news was reported on Monday, November 2 by the Department of Health of New York, which did not provide information about the age of the child, its previous health conditions or its vaccination status, asking to respect the privacy of the family.
Lewis County is about 150 kilometers north of Syracuse, in a predominantly rural area. Since the beginning of the year there have been at least 15 cases of measles, all among unvaccinated persons, according to the data reported by the local health authorities. However, it was not clear whether the deceased child was among these cases.
The death arrives during one of the most important measles epidemics in the United States in recent decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal public health agency, on 29 October 4,852 counters were confirmed in 2026, against the 2.289 registered in the entire 2025. This year’s number is therefore more than double than the previous year’s, which had been the highest since 1992.
In the state of New York the confirmed cases were 178 to 24 October: 170 out of the city of New York and eight in its five districts. Much of the campaigns have been reported since the second half of the summer in rural counties of the interior, where some communities have vaccination rates below the average. At the beginning of October, when cases in the state were still 108, the democratic ruler Kathy Hochul declared the state of health emergency, also allowing paramedics, obstetrics and other categories of health professionals to administer the measles vaccine.
Some of the outbreaks concern the Amish and Mennonite communities, Christian religious groups living above all in the rural areas of the United States and which, in many cases, maintain a lifestyle separate from that of the surrounding society. In some of these communities vaccinations are less widespread, even for religious reasons. The health authorities have, however, avoided publicly attributing all the counters to these groups, both for the risk of stigmatize them and because it is not yet clear how the epidemic has spread to the rest of the population. Some of the cases recorded in the state seem to be linked to larger outbreaks in the Amish communities of Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The question of vaccination has been the centre of a judicial dispute in the State for years. In 2019 New York eliminated the possibility of obtaining exemptions from school vaccination obligations for religious reasons, maintaining only medical ones. Some Amish families and schools of their communities have challenged the law, claiming that they violate religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. In June, a federal appeal court rejected their requests. The applicants then turned to the United States Supreme Court, which has not yet decided to examine the case.
Una famiglia Amish della Pennsylvania (via Shutterstock)
The measles is one of the most contagious viral diseases known. It is transmitted through the air and the virus can remain suspended in a closed environment up to two hours after a infected person left it. The initial symptoms include fever, cough, cold and redness of the eyes, followed by the characteristic rash. In children, especially in children, the infection can cause pneumonia, inflammation of the brain and other potentially deadly complications. There is no specific antiviral therapy approved to treat measles.
The main form of prevention is the MMR vaccine, which also protects from parotis and rosolia. In the United States it is normally administered in two doses, the first between 12 and 15 months of age and the second between 4 and 6 years. According to CDC, a dose offers a protection of 93 percent against measles, which rises to 97 percent after the second. To limit the circulation of the virus it is necessary that about 95 percent of the population is vaccinated, a threshold that in different areas of the United States is no longer reached.
The drop in vaccinations is a phenomenon started before the current Trump administration. In the school year 2025-2026, according to CDC data, 4.2 percent of children enrolled in childhood school had obtained an exemption from at least one compulsory vaccination, against 3.6 percent of the previous year. National coverage for MMR vaccine had dropped to 92.4 percent. The number of counters also shows how much the situation has changed: in 2024 only 285 cases had been recorded in the United States, less than a sixteenth of those confirmed so far in 2026.
Hochul linked the death to Trump’s health policies, accusing the federal government to weaken confidence in vaccinations. The president and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., supported initiatives to reduce some pediatric vaccination recommendations and initiated new vaccine safety checks. Both have also made doubts about a possible connection between vaccinations and autism, although numerous scientific studies have excluded this association. The worsening of the vaccination covers precedes however their return to the government, and there are no elements to directly attribute to the choices of the administration the single death occurred in Lewis County.
For the United States the return of measles is a problem also from the epidemiological point of view. In 2000 the country received recognition of the elimination of endemic transmission of the disease, thanks to decades of widespread vaccination. This did not mean that the virus had disappeared, but that it did not circulate permanently in the American population. Since then, imported cases and local outbreaks have continued to occur, generally contained through vaccination campaigns. The increase in infections over the last two years is making it increasingly difficult to maintain that condition.
L’articolo In New York a child died of measles, for the first time in more than thirty years comes from IlNewyorkese.
