A Bucks County resident tested positive for measles on Monday, according to the local health department.
The adult resident recently traveled to Central Pennsylvania, where several measles cases have been reported this year, officials said. The person’s vaccination status is unclear, but they are no longer contagious.
The Bucks County Health Department has notified healthcare providers whose offices the person visited while contagious, and is working to notify patients who may have been exposed.
More than 1,500 Pennsylvanians have tested positive for measles this year; 290 have been hospitalized from sickness. Six people have died from measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania, state officials have confirmed, the most seen in the nation in more than three decades. The state is investigating a seventh death reported in Franklin County.
Pennsylvania’s outbreak is centered in Lancaster County, right outside the Philadelphia region, and measles is actively spreading in suburban Chester County. The widening outbreak has affected more than half of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
Across the United States, there have been 5,182 confirmed cases as of last Thursday, which is already more than double last year’s total case count, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Monday’s confirmed case in Bucks County comes as the Pan American Health Organization meets this week to decide whether to revoke the United States’ measles elimination status, which it has held since 2000. While the designation is symbolic, it would mean measles — a vaccine-preventable disease — is once again spreading widely in communities across the United States.
The vast majority of Americans who have tested positive for measles are unvaccinated people who contracted the virus from someone in their community. In Pennsylvania, 73 new cases were reported in the last week, including one rare “breakthrough” case of a vaccinated person getting sick from the virus.
Measles has resurged amid declining vaccination rates in the Philadelphia region and across the country. Experts say that 95% of people need to be vaccinated to prevent the disease from spreading widely, since it is so contagious. Nine out of 10 unvaccinated individuals who are exposed will get sick.
Across the Philadelphia area, Bucks County had the lowest MMR vaccination rate for kindergartners, at 93.7% in the 2025-2026 year, down from 94.3% the year before.
People infected with measles generally begin experiencing symptoms within 10-14 days of exposure, Bucks County health officials said. Symptoms initially include a cough, runny nose, red eyes, headache, and sneezing, then progress to the virus’ signature rash.
» READ MORE: Your questions about Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak, answered
“Given the ongoing measles outbreak in parts of Pennsylvania, it is reasonable to expect additional cases may be reported here in Bucks County,” said David Damsker, Bucks County’s health department director. “Fortunately, across Bucks County we overall tend to see very high rates of vaccination against measles, which prevents further spread and keeps most infections mild in the rare instance that they occur.”
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