Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris speaking at the State Committee on Public Health meeting on April 9, 2025, in the RSA Regions tower in Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama recorded one case of measles in 2025 despite nationwide outbreaks and low vaccination rates. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
Alabama to this point has largely managed to avoid the measles outbreak that broke out nationwide in the United States last year. The state’s top health official said Thursday that credit is due to the work behind the scenes at the Alabama Department of Public Health.
“I assure you, if you haven’t been to many of these meetings, there are things that you have no idea that are in here, that are working behind the scenes in public health,” said Dr. Scott Harris at the State Committee on Public Health meeting. “Nobody knows about us until something goes wrong, because they’re generally working in the background, trying to keep people safe.”
The state recorded one measles case in north Alabama last August, the first such case recorded since 2002. The patient was a child younger than five, was unvaccinated and was traveling out of the country when the disease was contracted. The child later recovered and is not known to have infected other people.
Measles is a highly contagious disease, and ADPH officials have for years expressed alarm at the state’s swinging rates of Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccinations. In 2023-24, the rate among kindergartners was 93.8%, below the 95% rate the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers necessary to achieve herd immunity. About 95.3% of Alabama kindergarteners were vaccinated against measles in the 2024-25 school year,
There have been more than 1,700 measles cases in the U.S. in 2026 so far, according to the CDC. In 2025, there were almost 2,300 cases.
Measles outbreaks have surrounded Alabama. An outbreak originated in West Texas in January 2025 that by its end had 762 cases in about eight months. Measles has spread across the country, with an outbreak in South Carolina that had more than nearly 1,000 cases and bypassed the Texas outbreak for largest in the nation’s history. South Carolina has not seen any new cases since March 17.
A smaller outbreak in Florida had about 130 cases, according to the CDC. The most recent outbreak, though far from Alabama, is in Utah with 583 cases, 200 of which are in adults.
At every State Committee on Public Health meeting since the South Carolina outbreak, Harris says that the department remains prepared for measles to reach Alabama.
“Still no cases here. We fully expect to see cases here,” Harris said Thursday after briefing the committee on measles outbreaks across the country.
According to the CDC, 92% of the measles cases were in people who did not receive the MMR vaccine. Four percent received one dose, and 4% were fully vaccinated.
Public health officials say about 95% of the population needs to be immunized against measles to achieve herd immunity. For the 2024-25 school year, the CDC estimates that 95.2% of Alabama kindergarten students were fully vaccinated against measles. However, November ADPH data showed that about 77% of children under 10 were up to date on the measles vaccine.
About 1% of measles cases reported in the U.S. in 2025 were from international travelers, while the others were from states. Almost 90% of the cases were outbreak-related. In 2024, there were 285 cases of measles, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC, measles usually starts with a fever, cough, runny nose, and red eyes that leads to a rash. In serious cases, children can be hospitalized, develop pneumonia, swelling in the brain or die. According to the American Society of Microbiology, measles can also reset the immune system.
ADPH released its 2025 annual report on Thursday, which is submitted to the governor every year, and has been since the 1800s, Harris said. It provides an overview of what the department has done over the last year, including a record of the singular measles case.
“The biggest takeaway, in a way, is just what fantastic work people do,” Harris said in an interview after the meeting. “People who work in public health are just trying to make Alabama a better place. They just want people to be safe and healthy, and you can see that there.”
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Author: Anna Barrett