Two newly identified infections in unvaccinated children widened concern in the Sacramento region and added to a statewide rise tied to several local outbreaks.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento County said Monday that two more measles cases were found in unvaccinated children, pushing the county’s recent total to five and sharpening California’s response as the state recorded 34 confirmed cases this year through March 30.
The new cases matter because they show that measles is still moving through the Sacramento region more than a month after the county first announced infections tied to travel and community exposure. County and state health officials are now tracking linked cases across Sacramento and nearby Placer counties, while California’s broader case count has climbed through outbreaks in Northern California and scattered travel-related infections elsewhere in the state.
Sacramento County first announced two measles cases on March 4. Health officials said one child caught the virus in January while traveling in South Carolina, where a large outbreak was underway, and the source of the second child’s infection was not known. That second child later received care at Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center on March 2 between 6:55 a.m. and 7:14 a.m., prompting notifications to patients and staff who might have been exposed. The first child was no longer contagious by the time the county went public. Dr. Olivia Kasirye, Sacramento County’s public health officer, said at the time that measles can be brought back into a community through travel and that vaccination remains the main protection against further spread.
The regional picture widened a day later. Placer County reported three measles cases in teenagers from one family and said a fourth family member was also suspected to be infected. County officials said the family’s exposure appeared to trace back to an extended relative who had traveled to South Carolina and did not live in Placer County. In its update, Placer said all of the patients were recovering at home and that the only child enrolled in school had not attended during the suspected infectious period because classes were on break. Sacramento County later said the South Carolina traveler was believed to be the index case for the larger Sacramento-Placer outbreak. By March 4, a child from the same community had also attended an educational enrichment program while infectious, creating a possible exposure event for roughly 130 children, according to the state’s earlier public account.
Monday’s Sacramento County update added a new turn. Officials said the county was notified April 1 about two additional measles cases in unvaccinated children. Both children were placed in isolation and were recovering, while county health workers coordinated with clinics and emergency departments across the region to alert people who may have been exposed. Kasirye said the continued identification of cases was concerning because it showed how quickly measles can spread once it reaches a pocket of people without protection. The county said the five recent cases show the virus is circulating locally, even though officials continue to describe the overall risk to the broader public as low. What remains unclear is whether the two newest Sacramento cases are tied directly to the earlier county cases, to the Placer cluster, or to a separate chain of transmission that has not yet been fully mapped.
The Sacramento-area outbreak is only one part of California’s measles activity this year. State health officials had already warned in February that California was seeing more cases and outbreaks in 2026 than it did in all of 2025. One of the earliest and most closely watched outbreaks surfaced in Shasta County, where public health officials first identified a case on Jan. 30. By early February, the county had confirmed eight related infections, the state’s first outbreak since 2020. Another case brought Shasta’s total to nine in mid-February, and a 10th case was reported March 25 in a person under 18 who had received one dose of vaccine. State and local officials were still examining whether that later infection was connected to the earlier Shasta outbreak. Separately, the California Department of Public Health said two recent measles patients visited Disneyland on Jan. 22 and Jan. 28 while they were infectious, a reminder of how quickly an imported case can create public exposure concerns in crowded travel settings.
California’s statewide case count has risen in stages. State officials said there were 17 confirmed measles cases by Feb. 9. Sacramento County cited 26 statewide cases as of March 2 when it announced its first two infections. By March 30, the California Department of Public Health said the state had reached 34 confirmed cases. The larger national trend is even steeper. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the United States had logged 1,671 confirmed measles cases as of April 2 across 33 jurisdictions, with 94% tied to outbreaks. The CDC has said most cases continue to involve people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. Even so, California’s school vaccination coverage has remained stronger than the national average. State health officials said California has stayed above the 95% level for measles, mumps and rubella coverage among kindergarteners for nearly a decade, with a 96.2% rate in the 2023-24 school year. Public health officials have cautioned, however, that county and school averages can hide smaller groups of unvaccinated children where measles can spread quickly once the virus is introduced.
The response has followed a familiar but labor-intensive public health pattern. Counties have isolated infected patients, traced close contacts, notified hospitals and clinics, and worked across county lines with the state to sort out which cases belong to the same outbreak. Sacramento County said Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center put infection-control measures in place once staff suspected measles in the March 2 patient. In Placer County, officials said some later cases produced no public exposure events because people had already been asked to quarantine. A Placer County update on March 11 said its outbreak total remained at four confirmed cases at that point, but public health staff were trying to notify as many as 165 attendees of an enrichment program who might have been exposed. Another Placer update on March 25 said four additional cases had been identified in the same household as a previously known patient, again without new public exposures because those people had already been told to stay home. Those details have helped officials narrow the risk, but they have not ended the outbreak.
Across the region, health officers have tried to balance concern with reassurance. Placer County Health Officer Dr. Rob Oldham said in March that the risk to the general public appeared low because one family cluster seemed contained within an extended family network. In Shasta County, Public Health Director Katie Cassidy thanked affected residents for agreeing early to stay home before they became contagious, saying that quick cooperation helped limit new exposure sites. In Sacramento, the practical work has been less visible than a press conference or an emergency order. It has played out in phone calls to families, lists of clinic visitors, records from hospitals, and follow-up messages to people who shared indoor spaces with an infected child. That routine work is what determines whether the next public update brings a small revision or a larger jump in cases.
As of Tuesday, Sacramento County continued to list five recent confirmed cases, and the statewide total cited by local officials remained 34 through March 30. The next milestone is the completion of exposure notifications tied to the April 1 cases and any new state accounting that shows whether those infections stayed contained or seeded additional spread.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.