LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) — As measles cases surge across the United States, according to the Virginia Department of Health, six cases have been reported in the Commonwealth in 2026 so far. That’s already one more case than we saw in all of 2025.

Cali Anderson, Senior Epidemiologist with the Central Virginia Health District, said the increase in prevalence is concerning.

It has been increasing for the past several years, and around the country we’re seeing the same things with rates increasing. We have had a number of very large outbreaks around the US. So far in Virginia, we have not had that happen and we have only had individual cases so far this year,” Anderson said. “We’re likely to see those numbers keep increasing, unfortunately.”

Five of 2026’s cases were in Virginia’s Northern region, with one in the Central region. The ABC13 viewing area is located in the Southwest region, with no reported cases yet; however, Anderson warns that everyone needs to be vigilant.

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“The biggest thing with measles that makes it so concerning is that it is very contagious. So, for individuals that are unvaccinated or not immune to the virus, they have a 90% chance of getting infected if they’re exposed to it,” she said. “For example, if you are in a room of 10 people and one individual with measles walks into the room, everyone else is unvaccinated, nine of them are going to get it.”

The disease is incredibly contagious and difficult to contain.

It is very, very hard to contain once it starts spreading, and that’s why we see such massive outbreaks once they get into pockets of unvaccinated communities,” Anderson said. “That’s a real big concern with measles is that it spreads like wildfire and unfortunately, measles can be very serious.”

In some patients, measles can cause hospitalization or even lead to death.

“Typically, we see about one in every five measles cases ends up having to be hospitalized. It can lead to some serious side effects like pneumonia, conjunctivitis, we can see deafness. Then another big thing with measles is it causes an immune memory loss. Your immune system recognizes a lot of viruses and things that you’ve seen in the past, but when measles comes in, it tends to wipe out that memory. So, now, when your body is exposed to common things like the flu or RSV, or even the common cold, it doesn’t know how to react to them anymore. It has to build that immunity back up,” Anderson said.

According to VDH, vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and your family.

“Just one dose of the measles MMR vaccine will provide 93 percent efficacy against measles, and then after two doses it’s 97 percent effective,” Anderson said. “Nothing is 100 percent, but if we go back to our room example, if we have 100 people in the room and everyone is fully vaccinated with two doses, only three of them have the chance of getting it.”

In Virginia, about 86 percent of seven-year-olds have the full vaccination series, according to VDH. However, in the Central Virginia region, that number is only 70.12 percent.

The vaccine is the number one prevention for measles,” Anderson said.

Measles symptoms can take up to three weeks to show after exposure; however, people can be contagious four days before a measles rash even begins. The initial symptoms are similar to a common cold or the flu, making it even more likely to spread.

“In the first stage, we typically see a high fever of greater than 101, and we usually start to see a runny nose, some red watery eyes and cough. We refer to it as the three C’s of measles: cough, coryza, which is that runny nose, and then conjunctivitis, which is the watery red eyes. Then, about three to five days later, that’s when the rash starts. We typically see the rash present on the face, and then it will spread downwards across the body,” Anderson said.

If you or someone you know begins showing symptoms, VDH recommends letting your doctor know as soon as possible.

“If you think your child or someone that you know might have measles, make sure you’re notifying the healthcare place that you are visiting before you go in. You want to make sure that you’re mentioning that it is a measles-like rash, or you had exposure to measles or something like that. That will help to make sure that we’re limiting our healthcare exposure, because then we can work on the back end to try to limit lobby exposure or anywhere else. That helps to just make sure that we keep the exposure down and our numbers down,” Anderson said.