South Carolina Measles Outbreak ‘Slowing,’ Health Official Says

The outbreak has been ongoing since 2025.

A sign outside a South Carolina Department of Public Health Mobile Health Unit in Spartanburg, S.C., on Feb. 6, 2026. Jayla Whitfield-Anderson/Reuters

The measles outbreak in South Carolina is on the decline, one of the state’s top health officials said on Feb. 18.

“We are seeing a slowing,” Dr. Linda Bell, South Carolina’s state epidemiologist, told reporters during an online press conference.

An outbreak centered in Spartanburg County, located in northwest South Carolina on the border with North Carolina, started in the fall of 2025. The source of the outbreak is unknown.

The total number of cases related to the outbreak rose this week to 962, but most of those affected have since recovered. Officials reported 12 new cases on Feb. 17, after reporting 17 new cases on Feb. 13.

Bell said earlier in February that the outbreak may be on the decline, but that she was not sure.

“We have had lower day-by-day counts of reported measles cases recently. That is potentially an indication that this could be slowing but really, it is still too early to tell,” she said at the time.

Bell had pointed to how cases had been appearing in new counties.

The doctor said on Feb. 18 that those new cases did not lead to additional cases, and that the outbreak is definitely losing strength.

“The number of cases being reported daily now is much lower, and that indicates a slowing,” she said.

A sign about measles in Seminole, Texas, on April 9, 2025. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

“We are not out of the woods, though, and I don’t want that to give people a sense of false security that this is over,” she added later. “We are likely to see ongoing transmission based on the people who remain in quarantine, who may incubate out, and we would not declare this outbreak over until 42 days, two incubation periods, after the last case that we identify in South Carolina.”

The state has 127 people in quarantine and eight in isolation due to exposure to measles, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Health. The recommended quarantine period is three weeks.

Measles cases jumped in the United States in 2025 to 2,280, the highest number recorded since 1991. Many cases came from the South Carolina outbreak and an outbreak in Texas that ended in mid-2025.

So far this year, 910 confirmed measles cases have been reported nationwide as of Feb. 12, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A spokesperson for the CDC told The Epoch Times in an email on Feb. 12 that the CDC is working closely with officials in South Carolina, including to track transmission patterns.

“Current outbreaks are largely concentrated in close-knit, under-vaccinated communities with prevalent international travel that raises the risk of measles importation,” the spokesperson said.

Health officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recommend vaccination against measles, the spokesperson added.