With active transmission of measles, 23 entities

Ángeles Cruz Martínez

La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, February 3, 2026, p. 8

Measles transmission is active in 23 states of the Republic and increasingly in more municipalities. Jalisco stands out, where in the first month of the year the figure recorded throughout 2025 was already exceeded (829 against 663), while others such as Puebla, Tlaxcala and Veracruz debuted in 2026 with between 6 and 20 cases.

Meanwhile, Chihuahua, where the outbreak of the disease originated a year ago, is under control, after 4,493 cases in 2025. In January, eight episodes were recorded, according to the report from the General Directorate of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health (Ssa).

In this regard, Leticia Belmont, president of the Mexican Academy of Pediatrics, warned that beyond the figures, which should not exist because measles is preventable through vaccination, it must be taken into account that patients without a history of having received the biological can present complications ranging from the need for hospitalization, in 20 percent of cases, to pneumonia, in one in 20 affected, and encephalitis, in one in a thousand.

Likewise, there is the risk of death for three out of every thousand individuals, as well as long-term consequences if there is subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a rare but lethal neurological disease, the specialist indicated.

He drew attention to the fact that more than 90 percent of people who have had measles had not been vaccinated.

In fact, this caused the spread of the virus in rural communities of Chihuahua, to where the Undersecretary of Health Policies and Population Wellbeing, Ramiro López Elizalde, went to lead the health brigades to convince the population of the importance of accepting the application of the vaccine in children and adults.

After a year, the results of the strategy are observed with the progressive decrease in the number of people affected in the entity. During 2025, more than 6,000 probable cases were identified and 4,493 were confirmed; This year there are 31 probable and eight confirmed.

Most of the deaths have also been concentrated in Chihuahua: 21 of the 26 registered by the Ssa until last Friday. The other five occurred in Jalisco (2), Sonora (1), Durango (1) and Michoacán (1).

Avoid self-medication

Regarding measles activity in the national territory, the report from the Directorate of Epidemiology reveals that in each of the first three weeks of 2026, more cases were confirmed compared to the weekly records of 2025. The highest number was 320 between April 20 and 26.

Meanwhile, in the first three weeks of the new year there were 416, 421 and 447 confirmed measles episodes. The disease has been detected in the 32 states of the Republic and 286 municipalities.

There have not been any affected people in seven entities so far this year: Coahuila, Zacatecas, Campeche, Tamaulipas, Baja California Sur, Guanajuato and Quintana Roo. In addition to the decrease in cases in Chihuahua, in Sonora it went from 113 in 2025 to seven so far in 2025.

In the rest of the country there has been one case in Yucatán, 88 in Sinaloa, 126 in Mexico City, 216 in Chiapas and 829 in Jalisco.

The president of the Mexican Academy of Pediatrics pointed out that in the event of symptoms such as fever and red rash on the skin, one should immediately go to health services. He recommended avoiding self-medication. It is up to the health authority to strengthen the timely detection of cases to isolate them and prevent new infections.

For its part, the Ssa is preparing for the virtual meeting that will be held on April 13 with the Regional Commission of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for Monitoring and Reverification for the Elimination of Measles, Rubella and Congenital Rubella Syndrome (RVC).

At that meeting, the federal agency will present the report to the commission with descriptions and analysis with epidemiological and laboratory evidence, since measles transmission has continued for 12 months.

The RVC will present its recommendations to the director of PAHO, Jarbas Barbosa, who will determine whether or not Mexico maintains the certification as a country free of the disease, which it obtained in 2016.

Urgent actions

The Mexican Association of Vaccinology (AMV) requested “urgent prevention actions” against the measles outbreak in Jalisco, an entity that with 829 confirmed cases has 56.05 percent of all patients diagnosed in the country so far this year and with 1,636 people with symptoms of the disease under study, accumulates 39.35 percent of the probable cases.

“Jalisco is currently the state with the highest number of confirmed cases, concentrating an important part of the active measles outbreak in the country,” published the AMV, a non-profit scientific organization, made up of medical experts in infectious diseases, pediatrics and public health, dedicated to the dissemination, updating and study of immunizations, which is coordinated with federal and state institutions.

“This accelerated increase confirms that the measles outbreak in Jalisco is active and requires urgent prevention actions,” reported the AMV.

With information from Juan Carlos G. Partida, correspondent