Pennsylvania health officials on Wednesday reported a sixth measles-associated death this year, as the state confronts the nation’s largest measles outbreak.
The state health department said the person was an unvaccinated resident of Jefferson County, who had tested positive for measles. It declined to release additional details, citing privacy laws.
The woman was a 21-year-old who suffered complications after giving birth at home and had to be airlifted to a Pittsburgh-area hospital, Brenda Shumaker, director of the funeral home who handled the arrangements, said in an interview. She died in the hospital on Sept. 30, Shumaker said, and the primary causes of death listed on the death certificate were multisystem organ failure, postpartum hemorrhage, acute liver failure, and suspected measles.
The woman was from the Amish community, Shumaker added. The child, her first, is healthy and being cared for by the woman’s family, she said.
“She had just delivered her baby. It was a home birth, and the midwife was not able to handle the complications,” Shumaker said.
The report of the latest death comes days after New York reported its first measles-associated death in more than 30 years. An unvaccinated child in Lewis County died Sunday at the family’s home, according to New York state and local officials. New York health officials reported the death Monday, but did not disclose the child’s age or vaccination status.
The circumstances of the Pennsylvania woman’s death come as doctors and state health officials have sought more guidance from federal health authorities about measles during pregnancy — a condition that had been so rare in the United States in recent years that many clinicians have little experience recognizing or managing it.
Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sought about a month ago to issue an urgent nationwide alert about the risks of measles during pregnancy and provide guidance to clinicians, The Washington Post previously reported. The alert was not approved, for reasons that remain unclear. CDC scientists have instead been preparing a scientific report that would provide the first national accounting of measles during pregnancy during the current resurgence. It remains unclear when or where that report will be published.
“We are saddened to learn of this death in Pennsylvania,” Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a text message. She said the CDC remains committed to supporting the state as it responds to the ongoing measles outbreak. The agency has provided Pennsylvania with $4 million in one-time emergency funding to support response efforts into next year.
A CDC disease investigator has also been working with Pennsylvania health officials since last month, helping the state use advanced epidemiological modeling to estimate the true extent of the outbreak and better understand its trajectory. The federal assignment, originally expected to end earlier, was extended through Friday.
Pennsylvania issued its own statewide health alert last month after 77 pregnant women had been diagnosed with measles since the state’s outbreak began in late April. Officials warned doctors to immediately report suspected infections and highlighted the risks to mothers and babies. Measles during pregnancy can cause serious illness in the mother and increase the risk of pregnancy loss, premature birth and low birth weight. The virus can also pass to a fetus and cause congenital measles.
Pennsylvania has recorded 1,467 cases across 45 counties as of Wednesday, the health department said.
The deaths underscore the growing toll of the nation’s worst measles resurgence in decades, fueled by declining vaccination rates and outbreaks concentrated in communities with large numbers of unvaccinated people.
The six people whose deaths Pennsylvania has classified as measles-associated lived in Jefferson, Lancaster and Mifflin counties, largely rural counties. Three were Lancaster County residents, two lived in Jefferson County, including the one announced Wednesday, and one lived in Mifflin County. Several deaths were in adults.
State officials said Wednesday they have not classified another death, a 30-year-old unvaccinated woman, reported last month by the Franklin County coroner as measles-associated. The health department said its investigation has not found that case meets the state’s definition, which requires a death within 30 days of symptom onset in someone with clinical evidence of measles and a positive laboratory test, with no unrelated cause of death.
There continues to be an unresolved discrepancy over the national measles death count. The CDC updated its website Wednesday to list four measles deaths in 2026. Pennsylvania has confirmed six deaths and New York has confirmed one. CDC says it is working with state epidemiologists to develop a standardized definition for reporting deaths caused by measles.
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