New York State has declared a disaster emergency over measles, a disease the country declared eliminated in 2000, after 108 people in the state were confirmed infected this year and national cases passed 3,800.
Governor Kathy Hochul signed Executive Order 65, a written order from the governor, on 5 October, her office said.
It covers the whole state until 4 November.
Of the 108 cases counted as of 3 October, seven were in New York City, the state's largest city, and 101 were elsewhere.
Next door, Pennsylvania, a US state to New York's south, had 977 cases and five deaths as of October 5 according to figures cited by Al Jazeera.
The order widens who can protect people and test for the disease.
Paramedics and advanced emergency medical providers can give the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) once they meet conditions set by the state health commissioner.
Midwives can vaccinate under the supervision of a doctor, physician assistant or nurse practitioner.
Pharmacists can vaccinate children aged two and older,according to the order.
Registered nurses can order tests for people suspected of having measles, in addition to doctors.
In plain terms, more people in more places can give the shot and order the test.
Of the 108 cases, 92 were reported since 15 July, more than eight in every ten, among rural communities where too few people are vaccinated, the state's figures showed.
Those cases span 18 counties, and local health departments have since given more than 1,000 doses of the MMR vaccine in rural areas.
New York City accounts for only seven.
Figures published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the country's national public health agency, showed 3,887 confirmed measles cases as of 1 October, 18 of them among international visitors, against 2,289 in all of 2025.
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That is about 1,600 more than last year's whole total, with nearly three months of the year left.
Of this year's cases, 3,700 were outbreak-associated, a term the agency applies to cases linked to a group of three or more related cases.
Reuters reported in August, citing the CDC, that the year's total had already become the highest in more than 35 years, a level not seen since the 1989–1991 resurgence.
The agency's data also showed kindergarten MMR coverage slipping from 95.2% in the 2019–2020 school year to 92.4% in 2025–2026.
Kindergarten is the first year of US school, and the agency estimated the slide left about 280,000 kindergartners at risk.
It explained that measles can spread quickly and cause larger outbreaks in communities with lower vaccination rates.
Pennsylvania had recorded five measles deaths among 977 cases as of 2 October, New York's executive order cited, describing a fast-moving outbreak in rural counties that border New York.
According to a report by Al Jazeera, the state has since reported more than 1,000 cases.
The five deaths are the figure the order gave for Pennsylvania, although the CDC lists two confirmed measles deaths across the whole country in 2026 and has said that number could change as reviews finish.
Pennsylvania's health department explained that it counts a death as measles-associated when a lab-confirmed case dies within 30 days of symptom onset and the cause is not unrelated.
Both the CDC and Pennsylvania's department described national guidance on counting measles deaths as still in development.
The CDC's national count includes confirmed cases notified to the agency as of noon on Thursdays and leaves out probable cases, with the agency pointing to the states for the most current figures.
It also labelled the 2025 and 2026 counts preliminary and open to change. New York's cases are already part of the national total, and the two counts run to different dates (3 October and 1 October), so they cannot be added or compared exactly.
Lower vaccination coverage is linked to larger outbreaks, which is an association, not proof of how each outbreak began.
The order runs through 4 November, and the CDC updates its national count each week.
Sources:Office of the Governor of New York, release and Executive Order No. 65, 5 October 2026; CDC, 2 October 2026 (data to 1 October); Christy Santhosh, Reuters, 14 August 2026; Pennsylvania Department of Health, 6 October 2026; Al Jazeera, 6 October 2026
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