Health officials report a confirmed measles case in Kentucky, say it’s preventable with vaccination
By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News
Health officials from the Kentucky Department for Public Health announced a confirmed case of measles in a Kentucky resident on Wednesday, Feb. 26. The resident had recently traveled internationally to an area with ongoing measles transmission.
The health department reports that the infected adult had attended the Planet Fitness at 101 Allen Way in Frankfort, Kentucky on Monday, Feb. 17, between 9 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. while infectious and that people who were at the location during that time may have been exposed to the virus.
Anyone who has been exposed to measles and is unvaccinated should quarantine for 21 days after their exposure and contact their health care provider immediately if they develop symptoms, according to a news release. DPH Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack added that it’s important to call your provider first to let them know of your exposure to ensure others are not exposed.
Measles is a highly contagious respiratory virus that can cause serious health complications, especially in young children. It spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes and can survive for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area.
Early symptoms of measles begin 8 to 12 days after exposure and include high fever, cough, runny nose and red/watery eyes. A measles rash typically appears three to five days after the symptoms begin, usually on the face before spreading down the rest of the body.
Stack urged Kentuckians to get vaccinated, pointing out that vaccination rates among Kentucky kindergartners is only 90%, lower than the national average.
“Measles is one of the most contagious viruses in the world,” Stack said. “Fortunately, measles can be prevented with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which is safe and effective. Vaccines are an essential tool to keep children and adults safe and healthy.”
Measles is so contagious that if one person has measles, up to nine out of 10 people nearby will become infected if they are not vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The two-dose MMR vaccine is recommended for children at 12 to 15 months old and then at 4 to 6 years old. The CDC says the vaccine is also available for anyone who does not have presumptive evidence of immunity, which means they either have documentation of having received the MMR vaccine, laboratory evidence of immunity, confirmation of having had the disease or were born before 1957.
This is the first case of measles in Kentucky since 2023. It comes as a measles outbreak in Texas has claimed the life of an unvaccinated child, the first U.S. death from measles in a decade.
Nationwide, the CDC reports that as of Feb. 27, there have been three measles outbreaks (defined as three or more related cases) reported in 2025, and 93% of the cases (153 of 164) are outbreak-associated. Of those, 95% were either unvaccinated or had an unknown status and 3% had received only one of the two recommended doses of the MMR vaccine. The Texas outbreak, at 146 cases, makes up the majority of the national total.
Already, the number of measles cases in 2025 is higher than eight out of the past 15 years of annual counts of measles, Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist, reports in her newsletter, Your Local Epidemiologist.