At least 789 people have been infected with measles in South Carolina, surpassing the 2025 measles outbreak in West Texas that sickened 762 people and killed two girls.
The majority of cases remain concentrated in Spartanburg County, and most are among people who have not been vaccinated or did not know their status, the South Carolina Department of Public Health reported Tuesday. Since Friday, 89 new cases have been confirmed, showing that the spread of the virus is not under control.
Health authorities announced that 557 people have been quarantined for 21 days.
By January, cases directly linked to South Carolina had been recorded in California, North Carolina, and Washington state. According to NBC affiliate WKYC, several other probable cases have been reported in Ohio.
Dr. Zach Moore, state epidemiologist with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, said the state is monitoring vulnerable areas in the western part of the state where vaccination rates are low and geographically close to SC outbreak areas.
“We know there’s a lot of back and forth, so we’re certainly concerned,” Moore said at a media briefing on Jan. 21.
North Carolina health officials reported 14 new cases as of Tuesday, including one with direct ties to South Carolina.
More than 170 people are in quarantine in Union County, North Carolina, connected to an incident at Shining Light Baptist Academy, a private Christian school for children as young as 6 weeks old.
According to an alert from the Union County Department of Public Health, the quarantine order was due to an unvaccinated child attending the school being “infected with measles associated with an outbreak in South Carolina. The child attended school while contagious.”
According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, only 60.1% of students at Shining Light Baptist Academy have received the measles vaccination.
“Schools with very low vaccination rates create a tinderbox for measles, because measles is very contagious,” said Greenhouse, who is also a past president of the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “That’s what happened in upstate South Carolina, and that’s exactly what could happen again and again as the virus spreads to other areas with lower vaccination rates.”
The news was alarming for doctors trying to stop the spread of the infection.
“It’s very sad,” said Dr. Deborah Greenhouse, a Columbia pediatrician. “It further emphasizes the need to continue our efforts to educate South Carolina families and help them understand that increasing vaccination rates and adhering to quarantine and isolation are the ways to stop this problem.”
Health officials say most of those infected are children and teenagers. At least 23 schools in South Carolina have students in quarantine.
Infections in South Carolina have exploded at a dizzying pace. Cases were first reported in late September and spiked during the holidays.
South Carolina’s milestone comes as the United States moves toward losing measles-free status. If the virus is found to have originated from a single source and has been circulating for a year, that could happen as early as this fall.
In a Jan. 20 call with reporters, Dr. Ralph Abraham, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new deputy director, seemed to dismiss the allegations.
“This just makes it more expensive to do business because our borders are a little bit porous,” Abraham said. “There are communities that choose not to get vaccinated. That’s their personal freedom.”
Mr Abrahams acknowledged that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is “effective” but did not explicitly encourage vaccination in endemic areas.
The United States recorded more measles cases in 2025 than in any year since 1991, at 2,255, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far in January, 416 people have been confirmed to be infected nationwide.
The majority of patients (93%) were not vaccinated.
