PHILADELPHIA — Two people have died from measles in Pennsylvania, state officials confirmed Tuesday, the first fatalities from the highly contagious disease in the state in 35 years and the only deaths involving the highly contagious disease reported nationally so far this year.

The deaths occurred in Lancaster County, the center of a major measles outbreak that has sickened nearly 400 people this year, state officials said. Both people were unvaccinated.

Gov. Josh Shapiro said the deaths reflected “the consequences of a lack of immunization” during a news conference Tuesday morning outside Lancaster General Hospital.

He urged Pennsylvanians to get vaccinated against the disease, which can linger in the air for up to two hours and infect nine in 10 unvaccinated people exposed to it.

“There aren’t a lot of guarantees in life, but right now, while measles is spreading rapidly here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the first time in over a quarter-century, this is something I’m counting on as a dad: If you’re fully vaccinated, you’re not getting the measles,” Shapiro said.

State officials would not provide additional details about the two people or their families to protect their privacy.

Most cases resolve after mild illness and a telltale rash, but measles can cause serious complications that include pneumonia and brain swelling.

About one in five of the people diagnosed with measles this year in Pennsylvania have been hospitalized. Deaths are rare, occurring in about one to three people in every 1,000 cases. Three people died of measles nationwide in 2025.

Pennsylvania has reported the third-highest number of measles cases in the country for 2026, behind Utah and South Carolina, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest available data from Thursday. The CDC’s website had recorded no other deaths this year as of last week.

Shapiro said he had talked to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist, about the deaths.

Shapiro, a Democrat and vocal critic of Kennedy’s efforts to upend federal vaccine policy, said federal officials were contributing to the spread of misinformation that “in some cases isn’t driven by facts and by science,” about the safety of the measles vaccine.

“I was very, very blunt with him, and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania,” he said.

“That there’s real life consequences to spreading misinformation,” Shapiro said. “There’s real-life consequences to scaring people.”

He said more parents are vaccinating their children this year, noting that healthcare providers across the state have given out 35,000 doses of MMR vaccines in the last month; typically, they give out 25,000 in a month.

He also said that philosophical and religious exemptions for state-mandated vaccinations have tripled in the last decade. Pennsylvania has among the most permissive exemption laws in the country. “It’s dramatically reduced community immunity in different areas of our Commonwealth,” Shapiro said.

Just under 88% of kindergartners in Lancaster were vaccinated against measles in the 2025-2026 school year.

In Pennsylvania, children made up about one-third of the 393 patients diagnosed with measles in two separate outbreaks so far this year, state officials say. None of the patients diagnosed with measles this year have been fully vaccinated.

Last year, the state reported 16 measles cases.

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