Even With Measles Cases Reported All Around Wisconsin, None Reported in the State

Thursday, July 10th, 2025 -- 10:00 AM

(Nick Rommel, Wisconsin Public Radio) Measles cases in the United States this year have surpassed a 2019 outbreak and reached a 33-year high, according to data from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Outbreak Response Innovation.

According to Nick Rommel with the Wisconsin Public Radio, measles cases have popped up in 39 states, including all states that border Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.

But Wisconsin, which has one of the lowest childhood vaccination rates for the disease in the country, has not confirmed a measles case in 2025, according to the state Department of Health Services.

The outbreak began in Texas early this spring, and has slowed down in that area, according to data from that state’s health department. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has this year’s outbreak at seven fewer cases than 2019’s. But that data hasn’t been updated since July 1.

It shows a national weekly rate of new measles cases at less than half of what it was in spring. Jim Conway, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, says health providers in the state are watching the situation closely.

“We continue to sort of be on eggshells, and nervous, because obviously we’ve got some pretty substantial areas of the state that kids are under-immunized,” he said.

Some counties have seen 20-percentage-point declines in measles vaccination rates in recent years, WPR previously reported. In two Wisconsin counties, Clark and Vernon, fewer than half of kindergarten-aged children have both recommended doses of the measles vaccine.

In total, Wisconsin children have the second-lowest measles vaccination rate in the country. Conway said measles outbreaks often happen when a sick adult brings the virus to an area with many unvaccinated kids.

“When you see these cases start to pop up in other states, most of the time, when they figure out how it got there, it’s mostly traveling adults,” he said. He said current cases outside the southwestern U.S. can be attributed to travelers coming from that region or international countries where the virus is more common.

He said measles spreads easily because people can be contagious long before developing symptoms. He said vaccination, including for adults born after the introduction of measles vaccines in 1957, is an effective way to prevent spreading the disease.

“We do have a really strong Department of Health Services,” he said of Wisconsin. The state Department of Health Services considers measles a category I disease, meaning health providers are supposed to immediately report cases to their local health department.

A DHS spokesperson said Wisconsinites can check their measles vaccination status on the Wisconsin Immunization Registry, with their local health department or with their health provider.

According to the Johns Hopkins data, measles cases in neighboring states have been in areas close to Wisconsin, the Twin Cities, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Chicago and Jones County, Iowa.

According to the CDC, 2019 and 2025 are the only years since 1992 with more than 1,000 annual measles cases in the United States. A 1990 outbreak had seen 27,808 recorded cases across the country.

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