Health officials from four West Coast states are pressing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to revisit measles test validation as confirmed cases in 2026 exceed last year's total.
California and Washington first asked the CDC in May to validate a test designed to process more measles samples. The Guardian reported that the agency replied about two months later that it had “other competing priorities.” A West Coast Health Alliance letter, signed by officials from California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, urged CDC Director Erica Schwartz to reconsider and create protocols for other high-priority pathogens.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said the CDC was supporting state and local measles detection and was “prioritizing emerging technologies.” Her statement did not say whether the agency would validate a high-throughput test. CDC data published Oct. 16 show 4,410 confirmed U.S. cases through Oct. 15, including 4,228 linked to outbreaks and 42 new outbreaks. That total exceeds the 2,289 cases recorded throughout 2025.
The alliance said a high-throughput test would “dramatically strengthen” laboratories’ response. It warned that limited capacity could affect patient care and public health investigations during a large outbreak. CDC guidance calls for laboratory confirmation of suspected measles and tells clinicians to coordinate specimen routing with state or local health departments.
The Guardian reported that public health labs often rely on lower-volume measles tests despite acquiring higher-capacity equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reported that Texas state labs developed a high-volume test during the 2025 West Texas outbreak but did not release the method publicly or share the protocol with other labs.
An online paper dated Dec. 18, 2025, details analytical checks by ARUP Laboratories and University of Utah researchers on a dual-target measles PCR assay used with the Panther Fusion system. In the initial three months after clinical deployment, the team ran 525 tests involving 491 patients. The paper does not identify this as the test sought by the states or show that the CDC validated it.
