A measles outbreak in South Carolina that began in October is now wildly accelerating, doubling in just the past week to a total of 434 cases, with 409 people currently in quarantine.
Amid the outbreak, South Carolina health officials have been providing updates on cases every Tuesday and Friday. On Tuesday, state health officials reported 124 more cases since last Friday, which had 99 new cases since the previous Tuesday. On that day, January 6, officials noted a more modest increase of 26 cases, bringing the outbreak total at that point to 211 cases.
With the 3-month-old outbreak now doubled in just a week, health officials are renewing calls for people to get vaccinated against the highly infectious virus—an effort that has met with little success since October. Still, the health department is activating its mobile health unit to offer free measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccinations, as well as flu vaccinations at two locations today and Thursday in the Spartanburg area, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Officials are also warning that they’re losing the ability to trace cases, and exposures are continuing. Last Friday, someone contagious with measles was in the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia between 1 pm and 5 pm ET. Anyone in the museum during that time and unvaccinated is at risk of contracting the infection. The virus spreads through the air and can linger in a room’s airspace for up to two hours after an infected person has left. Measles is so contagious that up to 90 percent of unvaccinated people exposed will fall ill.
Health officials said the infected person who went to the museum did not know they were infected at the time. The infection—which is marked by high fever and a telltale rash—is contagious from four days before the rash develops and four days after it appears.
With 434 cases and at least 409 more unvaccinated people exposed and in quarantine, South Carolina’s outbreak appears on track to rival, if not surpass, the massive outbreak in Texas last year. That outbreak began in January and was declared over on August 18, with a total case count in the state of 762 cases (the outbreak spread to several other states, where additional cases were reported). Amid the 2025 outbreak, the US recorded its highest number of measles cases since 1991.
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