[1][2] In the first half of 2019, the World Health Organization received reports of 364,808 measles cases from 182 countries, up 182% from the same time period of 2018 when 129,239 confirmed cases were reported by 181 countries.
In the United States, the number of measles cases was set to reach a 25-year high by the middle of the year,[3] beginning with a large concentration of cases in the Pacific Northwest followed by another in New York,[4] as well in the U.S. state of California with two quarantines ordered at two colleges in Los Angeles on April 28, 2019.
[5] Other countries reporting large increases included Brazil, Nigeria,[6] Israel,[7] Ukraine, Madagascar, India,[3] and the Philippines.
However, the largest and most fatal outbreak of measles in 2019 occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
[1] As one such example, the outbreak in the Philippines was attributed by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to lowered trust in the government's immunization drive due to a controversy regarding administration of a dengue vaccine.