In the three decades between 1993 and 2024, measles in the U.S. was relatively rare – a few hundred cases each year, at most. But suddenly, the disease has become so entrenched in American life that it sometimes fails to make headlines when a new outbreak erupts.

As of March 2026, measles has been continuously circulating around the U.S. for more than a year, starting with an outbreak in Texas that lasted from January to August 2025. Before that outbreak was declared over, an outbreak on the Utah and Arizona border began in August and is ongoing. An outbreak in South Carolina began in September, drastically increased in January 2026, and continues.

---

South Plains, Texas, had long declared its measles outbreak over when in January wastewater testing picked up what Zachary Holbrooks called “a blip, a spike.”

The testing found measles after months without traces of the virus, which by the 2025 West Texas outbreak’s end infected over 750 people, hospitalized nearly a hundred, and two children died.

---

In the year that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been in office, his agency has made unprecedented changes to the childhood immunization schedule, removing universal recommendations for a half-dozen vaccines in favor of “shared clinical decisionmaking.”

---

Measles outbreak erupts in one of U.S.’s largest ICE detention centers

Camp East Montana, one of the largest immigration detention facilities in the U.S., has reported 14 confirmed measles infections, triggering the El Paso center to close to visitors

---

Experts say that the Trump administration has failed to take obvious steps to contain the spread of measles, which is continuing to accelerate in the United States as the number of cases has climbed past 1,000.

The administration has revealed a relaxed attitude toward the highly contagious virus both in terms of messaging and funding allocation, experts said.
---

Heard about a lot of people getting flu this winter but not much about covid?


It’s not just you. For the second winter in a row, the United States has faced a punishing flu season, with covid as a more muted threat.

Early in the covid pandemic, coronavirus proved far more transmissible and deadly as it ripped through the world than the flu typically was. Flu was almost nonexistent that first pandemic winter in 2020-2021.

---

When we gather indoors and exhale CO2, levels can rapidly rise and impair our cognitive function, even at levels that are pretty typical for indoor buildings in the US. But solutions are surprisingly cheap and easy! Today I'm joined by Dr. Georgia Lagoudas PhD, MIT grad and Senior Fellow and faculty at Brown University’s School of Public Health, where she brings extensive expertise in biosecurity and indoor air quality. She leads the at Brown, advancing policy and implementation projects to improve indoor air quality.

---

Beginning fall 2026, in-person master’s students in the School of Public Health will matriculate under a newly designed curriculum that has been structured to provide greater flexibility.

The goal is for students to graduate equipped with more hands-on skills and greater knowledge of how to apply their education to their chosen professions, said Associate Director of the Accelerated Master of Public Health Program and Associate Dean for Education in the SPH Scott Rivkees, who spearheaded the curriculum’s restructure.

---

The US government has amplified anti-vaccine rhetoric and signaled that it does not consider measles to be a priority, which could have global ramifications as countries around the world have lost or are on the brink of losing measles elimination status.
---

For the past week, about 50 flu scientists from around the world have been cramming into a conference room at a Hilton hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

Their goal is to design a flu shot that will confer the best protection for the next flu season —starting in the fall of 2026. Each day, they pore over reams of data — about how the virus is evolving worldwide, how well last year's shot performed, and which strains might be easiest to mass produce for a vaccine.