Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Feb. 23, 2026–Feb. 27, 2026.
CDC confirms 982 U.S. measles cases in 2026
NBC News (2/21, Edwards) reported the CDC on Friday confirmed 982 measles cases in 2026, “more than four times the number of cases as this time last year.” So far, 26 states have reported measles cases this year, with large outbreaks continuing to grow in Utah, Arizona, and South Carolina, “where the virus has been spreading since the fall. As of Friday, the state had reported nearly 800 cases since January, bringing the outbreak’s total to 973.” Meanwhile, cases in Florida “are also rising: The state’s health department has reported 92 cases since the beginning of the year.”
Hepatitis B vaccination rates among U.S. newborns dropped more than 10 percentage points in past two years
MedPage Today (2/23, McCreary) reports, “Hepatitis B vaccination rates among U.S. newborns have fallen by more than 10 percentage points over the past 2 years, reversing 6 years of steady gains, according to an analysis of electronic health records.” Researchers observed that “among more than 12 million infants, birth-dose hepatitis B vaccination rates rose from 67.5% in January 2017 to a peak of 83.5% in February 2023 before declining to 73.2% by August 2025.” Utilizing an autoregressive integrated moving average model, “the researchers found that vaccination rates beginning in July 2023 fell significantly below forecasted levels, marking a sustained divergence from prior trends.” The study was discussed in a JAMA research letter.
You may also be interested in: What doctors wish patients knew about hepatitis A, B and C.
As measles cases rise across U.S., nine other vaccine-preventable diseases may be next
The Washington Post (2/24, Felton) reports that more than 900 measles cases have been confirmed in the United States, according to the CDC’s latest count. While two doses of the MMR or MMRV vaccines “usually provide lifetime protection against measles,” declining vaccination rates “allow outbreaks to occur, and even states that have vaccination rates above 90% are experiencing outbreaks.” When vaccination rates decrease, the most highly contagious diseases pop up first, “and that’s why we call measles the canary in the coal mine,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. The World Health Organization warned in a joint statement with UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, last year that surges in other vaccine-preventable infectious diseases may follow. The article details the dangers faced by pertussis, meningitis, polio, rotavirus, RSV, tetanus, rubella, hepatitis B, and diphtheria in unvaccinated persons.
You may also be interested in: What patients need to know about measles prevention.
Number of women with cardiovascular disease will rise substantially in the coming decades, heart group says
NBC News (2/25, Mantel) reports, “Without better prevention and early detection, the number of women living with cardiovascular disease will increase substantially in the coming decades, the American Heart Association said.” The association, “using historical trends from two national health surveys and census estimates of population growth...forecast that the percentage of women with at least one type of cardiovascular disease will climb by more than a third, from 10.7% in 2020 to 14.4% in 2050.”
Healio (2/25, Buzby) reports, “Among adult women in the U.S., the prevalence of the following is projected to increase from 2020 to 2050: hypertension (48.6% to 59.1%) diabetes (14.9% to 25.3%), obesity (43.9% to 61.2%) and inadequate sleep (40.3% to 42.2%).” Meanwhile, “in analyses stratified by race, researchers reported Black women and American Indian/Alaska Native/multiracial women had the highest prevalence of total CVD and hypertension, and both are projected to increase across all groups.”
But, according to HealthDay (2/25, Thompson), the report, published in Circulation, “holds some good news. Rates of high cholesterol are expected to decline among nearly all groups of women,” while the team of researchers “also projects improvements in habits like eating healthy, getting more exercise and quitting smoking.”
You may also be interested in: 10 heart health resources from JAMA to share with patients.
Identical stool samples can produce different results in direct-to-consumer gut microbiome tests
MedPage Today (2/26, McCreary) reports a study found that “direct-to-consumer gut microbiome tests produced markedly different results—even when analyzing the same stool sample.” Researchers observed that “identical fecal samples sent via 21 home-testing kits to seven anonymized direct-to-consumer testing companies yielded a wide variation in reported bacterial abundance and in the health assessments generated from those data.” They noted that in some cases, “there was not even agreement among kits produced by the same company.” The study was published in Communications Biology.
AMA Morning Rounds news coverage is developed in affiliation with Bulletin Healthcare LLC. Subscribe to Morning Rounds Daily.
