Pennsylvania’s Third Measles Death Is a 40-Year-Old Woman

A 40-year-old unvaccinated woman on round-the-clock oxygen died of measles complications in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 12. County Coroner Greg Furlong tied the death to the virus on Sunday, the third fatality local officials have linked to the state’s outbreak.

She lived far from the Lancaster County farms where the outbreak took hold in late April. The Pennsylvania Department of Health is still reviewing the case. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still lists no measles deaths for 2026.

A 40-Year-Old Woman Died on Home Oxygen

Furlong said the woman had not been vaccinated against measles. She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, and she had been on extra oxygen 24 hours a day before she got sick. A family member had measles first, he said, and then she did.

Jefferson County is in western Pennsylvania. The state’s case load has been heaviest in Lancaster and Mifflin counties, where large farming communities sit and where two infants died in August. This death is the first measles-related fatality the Jefferson County coroner’s office has recorded in this outbreak, and it is the first adult death officials have tied to the virus in Pennsylvania this year.

Many people associate measles with a childhood illness, but it can lead to severe complications in individuals of any age.

Jason Stiver, Jefferson County Chief Deputy Coroner

Stiver, who also serves as the office’s public relations officer, said measles can bring serious respiratory illness, hospital care, and, in rare cases, death. “While cases of severe illness remain uncommon, this tragedy highlights that measles should not be taken lightly,” he said. Furlong called the loss “an unfortunate reminder that measles can be a serious and potentially life-threatening disease.” The coroner’s office said it is working with the state health department and would release no further personal details.

Measles spreads when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes, and the virus can stay infectious in the air and on surfaces for up to two hours. Symptoms can start 7 to 21 days after exposure: fever, cough, runny nose, red watery eyes, then a rash that begins on the head and moves down the body. Death is uncommon, at 1 to 3 patients per 1,000 cases, but the path is often the lungs. For a woman already dependent on oxygen, that path was short.

The State Has Confirmed 676 Cases in 37 Counties

On Sept. 11, two days before Furlong’s announcement, the health department reported 676 measles cases across 37 counties so far in 2026. Fifty-two of those cases had come in since Sept. 9. The same update listed 124 hospitalizations and two measles-associated deaths, both from Lancaster County.

Those 124 hospital stays are 18% of the confirmed cases, in line with the department’s own warning that measles puts nearly 1 in 5 infected people in a hospital. Four people among the 676, less than 1%, had received the shots they should have had for their age: three adults and one child, living in Centre, Jefferson, Lancaster, and Lycoming counties. None of those four was hospitalized. The Jefferson County breakthrough case is not the woman who died. Furlong said she had not been vaccinated at all.

PENNSYLVANIA AGAINST THE NATIONAL TALLY

The national column comes from the CDC’s weekly measles page, which counted 3,294 confirmed measles cases nationwide as of Sept. 10. Of those, 3,278 were reported by 47 jurisdictions and 16 were in international visitors. Ninety-five percent of the U.S. total, 3,123 of 3,294, is tied to outbreaks. The 2025 full year closed at 2,289 cases and 3 deaths. The department posts hospitalizations, deaths and county spread on its public dashboard as the Pennsylvania numbers move.

Two Infants Died in Lancaster County in August

Pennsylvania had not recorded a measles death in 35 years, since 1991, when the health department on Aug. 25 reported two measles-associated deaths in unvaccinated Lancaster County residents. That announcement set off a fight over what the phrase means, and over who gets to count a body.

Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni later said one death was a six-week-old infant with Amish lethal microcephaly, a rare genetic condition that is almost only seen in Amish families and that leaves a child open to respiratory infection. He said measles caused that death, which he placed on Aug. 18. The other death was a newborn who tested positive for measles and died of a ruptured spleen. Diamantoni said his forensic pathologist concluded measles did not cause the rupture. The state still lists that case as measles-associated, a label it uses when lab or outbreak evidence of measles is present even if the certifier does not name measles as the immediate cause.

HOW THE DEATHS STACKED UP

1. Late April 2026: The outbreak begins in the Lebanon and Lancaster county area.
2. August 18, 2026: A six-week-old Lancaster County infant with Amish lethal microcephaly dies; Diamantoni later says measles was the cause.
3. August 25, 2026: The state health department confirms two measles-associated deaths, the first in Pennsylvania in 35 years.
4. September 11, 2026: The state tally reaches 676 cases, 124 hospitalizations, and two deaths.
5. September 12, 2026: The Jefferson County woman dies of measles complications, according to Furlong.
6. September 13, 2026: Furlong announces the death. CDC Director Dr. Erica Schwartz says Pennsylvania has not asked for a federal Epi-Aid team.

Lancaster County is home to the country’s largest Amish community. The health department estimated last year that only 25% of that community had received the measles, mumps, and rubella shot. School-year figures for 2025-2026 put two-dose MMR coverage among Lancaster County kindergarteners at 87.6%, against 93.2% statewide and a 95% community-immunity line. The infant deaths landed in that gap. The Jefferson County woman did not live in it, and she still died.

Adults Now Make Up 37% of U.S. Cases

CDC age tables undercut the habit of filing measles under childhood. Of the 3,294 confirmed U.S. cases through Sept. 10, 1,213 people, 37%, were 20 or older. In 2025 that adult share was 29%. School-age children, 5 to 19, are still the largest group at 45%, and children under 5 are 18%.

Adults are also landing in hospitals at a higher rate than school kids. Twelve percent of patients 20 and older, 144 of 1,213, have been hospitalized this year, compared with 4% of patients ages 5 to 19. Among children under 5 the hospital rate is 11%. The Jefferson County woman fits that adult column: unvaccinated, already on oxygen, infected at home after a relative got sick.

Nationally, 95% of 2026 cases are in people who were unvaccinated or whose shot record is unknown. Three percent had one MMR dose. Three percent had two. Pennsylvania’s share of fully vaccinated cases is even smaller, those four people, and the department notes that vaccinated patients tend to get a milder illness. The woman who died was not in that group.

Why the CDC Tally Still Shows No Deaths

The CDC measles page marks 2026 deaths with an asterisk. The National Center for Health Statistics, it says, does not currently have any 2026 death records that list measles as the underlying cause. The agency is working with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists on a standard definition of a measles death, and until that work is done it will count a death only when NCHS records measles as the underlying cause.

That is a break from the old habit of taking a state’s call. The health department has already given CDC and the epidemiologists’ council its measles-associated death definition, on Sept. 10, and it is running the Jefferson County case through that definition now. On the federal board, the two Lancaster infants still do not appear. Neither does the Jefferson County woman.

WHAT WE KNOW

• Coroner’s finding: Furlong attributed the Sept. 12 death to measles complications in an unvaccinated 40-year-old woman with COPD and asthma who used oxygen all day.
• Household spread: He said a family member had measles first.
• State review: The health department is applying its measles-associated death definition and said it will update the public when that review is done.
• Federal board: CDC still shows no 2026 measles deaths and has not added the August Lancaster fatalities.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• State death count: As of the Sept. 11 update the official Pennsylvania death total was still 2.
• Federal classification: Whether NCHS will ever list measles as the underlying cause for any of the three Pennsylvania deaths.
• Epi-Aid: Whether Pennsylvania will request the CDC field team that Texas, South Carolina, Virginia, Kansas, New Mexico, and Wisconsin have already asked for.

Schwartz, in one of her first public comments on the country’s measles outbreaks, said the agency had not been notified by Pennsylvania officials of the Jefferson County death. “Despite repeated offers of assistance, Pennsylvania has not requested a CDC Epi-Aid, which would deploy epidemiologists and provide on-the-ground measles outbreak support,” she said. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in late August that he had declined help from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and had told Kennedy that his “actions and his rhetoric,” including false claims about vaccines, were harming communities. Kennedy accused Shapiro of fearmongering and of the “weaponization of infectious disease,” and suggested the August deaths may have been “altogether fabricated” by a staffer.

The argument over wording is not a side issue. “Measles-associated” is the phrase skeptics now treat as a dodge, and it is also the phrase the state uses when measles is in the record but is not written as the immediate cause. Diamantoni has already split the two Lancaster deaths on that line. Furlong did not. He named measles complications in a woman whose lungs were already failing, and he named the missing vaccine.

Kindergarten MMR Coverage Has Fallen to 92.4%

Two doses of MMR two MMR doses prevent 97% of measles, the CDC says, and the shot has been in use since 1963. Community protection against measles is supposed to sit above 95%. Among U.S. kindergarteners, two-dose MMR coverage has fallen from 95.2% in the 2019-2020 school year to 92.4% in 2025-2026, leaving about 280,000 kindergarteners unprotected during the latest school year.

WHERE THE SHOT RATE SITS

• U.S. kindergarteners: 92.4% with two MMR doses in 2025-2026, down from 95.2% in 2019-2020.
• Pennsylvania kindergarteners: 93.2% in 2025-2026, down from 93.7% the year before.
• Lancaster County kindergarteners: 87.6% in 2025-2026, well under the 95% line.
• Lancaster Amish community: State estimate last year of 25% with MMR.

The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000. Elimination means the virus was no longer spreading on its own inside the country. The 2026 map does not look like that. CDC counts 38 new outbreaks this year, defined as three or more related cases, and 95% of confirmed infections are outbreak-linked. Ninety-four percent of last year’s cases were already in people who were unvaccinated or whose status was unknown.

A disease that hospitalizes about 1 in 5 unvaccinated patients, that gives pneumonia to as many as 1 in 20 infected children, and that causes brain swelling in about 1 in 1,000 kids does not stay in the counties where it starts. Pennsylvania’s own map now covers 37 counties. Jefferson County is on that map, and so is a 40-year-old woman who needed oxygen before the rash ever appeared.

Pop-Up Clinics Put 4,300 Shots Into Affected Towns

The health department says getting vaccinated is still the best protection, and it has been running clinics since the outbreak began. State staff have given nearly 4,300 MMR shots at 130 pop-up clinics in affected communities since late April, with more clinics planned. Overall, state health center staff have given more than 6,300 MMR doses to residents in 2026. Those are two different ledgers, and they should not be added together.

Private clinicians have seen a jump too. In a typical month, Pennsylvania providers give about 25,000 MMR doses. In August 2026 they gave more than 46,000. Demand moved after the infant deaths became public. It did not move in time for the Jefferson County woman, who Furlong said had never been vaccinated.

THE SHOTS ALREADY IN THE FIELD

• Pop-up clinics: Nearly 4,300 MMR doses at 130 sites in affected communities since late April.
• State health centers: More than 6,300 MMR doses to residents in 2026.
• August provider volume: More than 46,000 MMR doses, against about 25,000 in a typical month.
• Advice line: Residents who think they were exposed can call 877-724-3258 (877-PA-HEALTH).

Residents can get MMR through a clinician, a county or municipal health department, a state health center, a federally qualified health center, or the Vaccines for Children program. The department’s Sept. 11 update still listed two measles-associated deaths. Furlong has now added a third body in a western county, an unvaccinated adult who was already on oxygen. Until the state finishes its review, and until NCHS writes measles on a death record, the federal page will keep showing a blank where those deaths belong.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a public-health outbreak and is for information only. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a recommendation about whether any person should receive or decline a vaccine. Readers with questions about measles exposure, symptoms, pregnancy, lung disease, or immunization should contact a licensed physician, pediatrician, or local health department before making a health decision. Case counts, death classifications, and vaccination figures reflect the Pennsylvania Department of Health and CDC sources cited here and will change as reviews and weekly updates continue.