Measles cases found in Orleans County, health officials warn

The Vermont Department of Health has confirmed a “small number” of connected measles cases in Orleans County, it said Monday. An investigation and response are ongoing, according to a release.

The department is asking healthcare providers to maintain a heightened awareness and report suspected cases immediately, even if there is not yet laboratory confirmation of infection.

“The risk presented to most Vermonters by the current situation is low,” department spokesperson Kyle Casteel wrote in an email. He said the department’s epidemiologists are in the field responding to the situation but will be able to provide further detail soon. The Health Department released a health advisory to providers Monday, followed by formal confirmation of the disease later in the day.

“We are providing testing, offering vaccination and guidance and communicating with the people who have symptoms, working with local hospitals and healthcare providers to coordinate our response, and continuing to monitor the situation and communicate with the public,” Casteel wrote in an email to VTDigger. North Country Hospital in Newport and Copley Hospital in Morrisville are the closest hospitals for most of Orleans County.

“I do know they don’t make this report lightly,” said Dr. Tracy Tyson, a pediatrician in St. Albans, referring to the advisory before the cases were confirmed. Tyson, who is president of the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she takes the department’s advisory “much more seriously” than previous situations where cases were suspected.

Vermont had one reported case earlier in 2026, two in 2025 and a total of two in the 10 years prior, according to the Health Department. Casteel did not provide additional information on the number of cases confirmed Monday, citing patient privacy.

The virus is one of the most contagious known pathogens, with infection occurring in about nine of every 10 people exposed without appropriate vaccination, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There is no antiviral treatment for the illness, which presents with a fever and rash that typically starts on the face and moves down the body.

The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is known to reduce infection and illness. The Health Department’s advisory urged providers to ensure their patients are up to date on the vaccine.

However, uptake of the vaccine has waned across the country in recent years, as questions of vaccine efficacy have become increasingly politicized and as federal Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the president have sought to erode existing immunization recommendations. For the 2025-2026 school year, 92.4% of kindergartners nationwide received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, compared with 95.2% in the 2019-2020 school year, CDC data shows.

In Vermont, Health Department data shows that 94% of children in independent and public schools have been fully vaccinated against measles before starting kindergarten. The data, however, does not include homeschooled children or those who have yet to begin school.

According to Health Department data, more than 90% of students in most Orleans Central Supervisory Union schools have full compliance with their MMR vaccines, though the Albany Community School and Orleans Elementary School dip below that at 86% and 88% compliance, respectively.

Herd immunity — the level at which enough people are resistant to the disease to prevent its transmission — requires 95% immunization, the department notes.

The cases in Vermont come just as experts forecast that the U.S. is on track to lose its measles elimination status.

“I think this has been coming for quite some time,” Tyson said. Losing elimination status, she said, is a benchmark of just how prevalent the disease already is, and it’s already widespread through the U.S.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the U.S. has seen 5,182 cases of measles this year. It’s the most the country has seen since 1991, according to a CDC database. The curbing of the multiyear outbreak in the early 1990s coincided with the timing of a CDC vaccine panel and American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of a two-dose MMR vaccine.

In 2025, the U.S. had 2,289 cases of measles, while 2024 saw only 285.

Just last week, a child in upstate New York’s Lewis County died amid an ongoing outbreak there. Across the U.S., the CDC reports a total of four deaths so far this year.

Tyson encouraged Vermonters to check with their doctor to ensure they are up to date on their MMR vaccines, and she reminded parents with children under the age of 1 that they could consider an early measles vaccine. Though the Health Department has not changed its official guidance to recommend earlier vaccination, Tyson said that it is still scientifically sound and more likely to be recommended if there is an outbreak.

She also encouraged parents who may have been hesitant to vaccinate their children to revisit a conversation with their provider.

“The risk of the vaccine may have felt higher to them,” she said. “This might change the risk calculation to them.”

If parents still choose not to vaccinate their children, she recommended having a plan for exposure — about how to detect early symptoms, where to get care and how to keep from spreading the illness to others.

This story was first published by VTDigger and is republished with permission as part of the Vermont Journalism Trust’s Community News Sharing Project.