Days after measles cases in the United States
hit a record high
, a top Democrat called on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, to declare the spread of the virus a public health emergency.
In a
letter
to Mr. Kennedy on Friday, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, argued this step was necessary to control the “rapid resurgence” of the highly contagious virus. There have been 1,288 cases in 2025, more than any other year since the United States declared measles eliminated in 2000.
Mr. Kennedy has the sole authority to make this declaration, which would mobilize federal funding and expedite the availability of tests and therapeutics. There are no immediate plans to declare a public health emergency, according to a Department of Health and Human Services official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
Most of the measles cases this year have been connected to the Southwest outbreak, which started in a Mennonite community in West Texas and spread to Oklahoma and New Mexico. Three people have died from the virus this year, the first such deaths in a decade.
Mr. Schumer criticized the secretary’s handling of the outbreak in the letter, arguing that layoffs and cuts to public health funding have destabilized the country’s infectious disease response. He also chided the secretary for downplaying the outbreak and undermining vaccines.
“The longer the federal government delays, the more children are placed in danger, and the more states will see Texas’s nightmare play out in their own communities,” he wrote.
