Measles is costing the U.S. millions of dollars. The true losses can't be counted.
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In 2026, there have been over 1,000 cases of measles. If vaccination rates keep dropping, the costs of medical care, public health efforts and lost work productivity could skyrocket.
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Measles outbreaks are costing the U.S. millions of dollars. The true losses can't be counted. As vaccination rates decline, the economic consequences will increase, research suggests. Some of the supplies in a Spartanburg, South Carolina mobile health unit. The S.C. Department of Public Health wouldn’t divulge how much contact tracing, mobile vaccine clinics and increased staffing have cost during the outbreak. Patrick Martin / NBC News Share Add NBC News to Google March 1, 2026, 6:00 AM EST By Erika Edwards Listen to this article with a free account 00:00 00:00 In early 2025, as measles began to tear through West Texas, Katherine Wells knew she needed money. Though the outbreak was concentrated in Gaines County, a community an hour away, Wells, who heads Lubbock’s public health department, needed more staff to respond to numerous exposures at local pediatricians’ offices, urgent care centers, restaurants and day cares. “We were really relying on staff that aren’t hourly, because I can work them for 80 hours if I have to, which is horrible,” Wells said. In emergency planning meetings with the Texas Department of State Health Services, she pleaded for roughly $100,000 to hire temporary workers to help her exhausted staff. “I was like, can I just have money so that if I need a few hours of work from a retired school nurse who we’ve worked with before, I can just pay them?” Wells said. The answer, she said, was consistently “no.” The state did send a few travel nurses from other areas to help, but no extra funding. To stop a measles outbreak from escalating out of control, public health workers have to snap into action, contacting every person exposed to the virus as fast as possible, determining their vaccination status or health risk, and then try to woo them into either getting vaccinated or staying home for three weeks in quarantine. Wells pulled at least half of her staff to work the outbreak response on top of their other daily duties. What’s the real cost of a m...
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