A 40-year-old unvaccinated woman in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, has died from measles complications, becoming the third person to die from the disease in the United States this year. All three deaths occurred in Pennsylvania, with the first two reported in August in Lancaster County, home to a large Amish community with lower vaccination rates. The deaths underscore the scale of a rapidly growing outbreak: the US Centers for Disease Control reports 3,294 measles cases across more than 45 states in 2026 alone, a striking figure given that measles was declared eliminated in the country in 2000. The resurgence has been linked by health experts to rising vaccine scepticism, and has prompted a public dispute between Pennsylvania state officials and the federal Department of Health and Human Services, whose secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has questioned the state's measles-related death reports and accused Pennsylvania's government of politicising the outbreak.