Sacramento health officials sounded the alarm about a potential measles outbreak on Monday after more than 100 children were exposed to an unvaccinated child at an educational enrichment program.
It’s far from the only community at risk. The US has already passed 1,000 confirmed cases this year, with infections “worse than expected” in Utah and the largest outbreak on an American college campus in recent history occurring at Ave Maria University in Florida.
While about one in five unvaccinated children who get measles need to be hospitalized, even those who make a full recovery face a lurking threat: a deadly disease that remains latent until striking — and killing — years later.
That’s what happened to a 7-year-old boy who recently died at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California.
He had contracted measles as a baby of just 7 months old — but fast forward years later to when he was six, and he experiencing cognitive deterioration and seizures.
Doctors eventually diagnosed him with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a neurological disease that can develop years after a measles infection.
This brain disorder usually starts with subtle personality changes, like memory loss, irritability or mood swings. Over time, it can progress to involuntary muscle spasms, loss of coordination, severe brain damage, coma — and almost always death.
These symptoms typically emerge six to 10 years after the original infection.
Measles often starts like a common cold, causing a cough, runny nose, sore throat and watery eyes, before escalating to a high fever and the telltale red rash that spreads across the body.
The highly contagious virus can persist in the body and acquire certain mutations that trigger SSPE years later.
“The measles is sort of sitting around in your brain and causing, on the cellular level, changes that sit there quietly,” Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, previously told The Post.
“You could have had your measles as a 2-year-old, and now you’re in college, and all of a sudden your brain falls apart and you have no future,” she added.
Between four and 11 out of every 100,000 cases develop the brain disorder, with the risk jumping to 18 out of 100,000 if the child is under 5 when infected.
Just last year, another school-aged child in Los Angeles passed away from the complication after being infected with measles as an infant, before they were eligible for the vaccine.
Although antiviral and anti-inflammatory drugs can slow the progression of the disease, there is no known cure for SSPE.
While there are only four or five SSPE cases per year in the US, the number is expected to rise as measles cases increase nationwide.
Last year, the CDC confirmed 2,242 measles cases in the US, 93% of which were in unvaccinated people or those with unknown vaccination status.
Measles-related deaths are also a looming threat, as three deaths were reported in 2025.
It’s unclear whether the boy was vaccinated. But the best way to prevent measles and possible brain infection is the mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, with the first dose routinely recommended for kids between 12 and 15 months old. A second dose is given before kindergarten or first grade.
However, MMR vaccination rates and other routine childhood immunizations have declined in the US since the COVID-19 pandemic.
A recent report found that 92.5% of kindergarteners were vaccinated against MMR for the 2024–25 school year, down 2.5% from 2019–20.
This is well below the 95% threshold public health experts say is necessary to prevent outbreaks
