As measles cases continue to rise in the U.S. and abroad, travelers may be concerned about visiting destinations with ongoing outbreaks.
There have been 483 confirmed cases reported so far this year by more than a dozen states including California, Florida, Ohio and Vermont, with the highest numbers concentrated in Texas, New Mexico and Kansas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those numbers have already surpassed the total cases in all of 2024.
Ninety-seven percent of those 2025 cases have occurred in people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown, the CDC said.
Europe has also grappled with the illness, with the region reporting its highest case numbers in over 25 years for 2024, according to a recent World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) analysis. Here’s what travelers should know.
How does measles spread?
Measles is “highly contagious” and can spread from person to person when someone who is infected coughs or sneezes, the CDC said. People can also get sick by breathing contaminated air – where it can live for two hours – or touching their mouth, eyes or nose after contact with a contaminated surface.
International travel is a source of measles cases, according to the health agency. “The disease is brought into the United States by unvaccinated people who get infected in other countries,” the CDC said on its website. “Typically, 2 out of 3 of these unvaccinated travelers are Americans. They can spread measles to other people who are not protected against measles, which sometimes leads to outbreaks.”
Dr. Stephen S. Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said whether or not travelers should be concerned depends on if “they already have some, what the CDC would call presumptive evidence of immunity … or if they’re going to an area where there is a fairly high measles risk.”
