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The measles outbreak in 2025 cost almost $5.4 million to contain according to new research published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Authors of the study said $53,522 was spent per measles case, which breaks down to $1,817 per person that came into contact with the viral disease.
Numbers for their findings were derived from the experiences of 133 public health responders, 100 patients with confirmed measles cases and 205 exposed contacts.
Researchers say six figure price tags were attached to managing the virus.
The study says $290,000 was spent on direct medical costs, including seven hospitalizations, while $32,000 were put towards 79 outpatient visits and $20,000 was spent on 1,286 commercial laboratory tests, according to Reuters.
“The largest component of the public health response to the outbreak (about $3.2 million) was costs from vaccination-related activities (about $2.1 million),” researchers wrote.
Researchers also noted that the reported costs may be overestimated or underestimated due to incomplete reporting, citing their use of insurance data rather than actual medical costs.
Certain direct medical costs were also excluded and assumptions were made for productivity losses, per their paper.
Still, researcher Katherine Wells of Lubbock Public Health said the financial impact caused by measles must be measured in order to properly address the virus.
“Until we account for the full cost of outbreaks, not just the cases but the consequences, we will continue to underestimate their impact and undervalue the systems required to prevent them,” Wells wrote in a July 9 study published in the American Journal of Public Health, as cited by Reuters.
This year, the U.S. has recorded 2,371 measles infections, marking the highest number of cases seen since 1991.
Part of the uptick in cases has been credited to vaccine disinformation that has sparked hesitancy in immunizations.
On Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he is urging parents to get the measles vaccine.
“A measles vaccine is effective. It stops measles in about 97 percent of the cases. So people should get vaccinated,” Kennedy told CNN’s Dana Bash, who pressed him over past statements of vaccine skepticism.
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