City Providing Free Measles Vaccines

Frank P. Zeidler Municipal Building, location of Milwaukee Health Department. Photo taken Aug. 4, 2025 by Graham Kilmer.

The City of Milwaukee is providing free measles vaccinations.

On Saturday, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) confirmed that a measles outbreak in Oconto County includes the first recorded cases of the dangerous, highly contagious illness this year.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson joined local health officials Monday morning and announced the city has procured 800 doses of measles vaccine, which are available, for free, at city health clinics. The Milwaukee Health Department has plans to purchase more and expects the state will provide additional doses if there is an outbreak in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee, like the rest of the state, is at high risk for an outbreak. Children in Milwaukee, like the rest of the state have a very low rate of immunization relative to the rest of the country. Only 75% of six-year olds in the city have received both recommended doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, often called the MMR vaccine.

“Measles is extremely contagious,” said Commissioner of Health Michael Michael Totoraitis  The virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves, he noted.

Even among contagious diseases, measles is on another level when it comes to transmissibility. For every single case of COVID-19, public health officials expect to see two to five additional cases. For every one case of measles, officials expect 12 to 18 additional cases, Totoraitis said.

Symptoms of measles include high fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes and a full body rash that begins at the head and spreads cross the body. The illness can be very dangerous, causing pneumonia, encephalitis (swelling of the brain) and death. Young children, older adults and immunocompromised persons, including pregnant women, are more at risk for the virus, said Michael Gutzeit, president of Children’s Medical Group.

There have been three confirmed deaths from measles in 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“As a parent myself, I cannot imagine losing my child to a vaccine preventable disease,” Totoraitis said.

Wisconsin lags most of the country and has the third lowest rate of MMR immunizations. Dr. Ben Weston, chief health policy advisor for Milwaukee County, said Wisconsin has become a “tinderbox” for a potential measles outbreak. Some schools in Milwaukee have a vaccination rate of only 60%, said Totoraitis. As of July, there have been more than 1,000 cases of measles across the U.S.

Immunization has been declining across the U.S. In Wisconsin, childhood vaccination rates began declining in the 1990s, according to Totoraitis.

Public health officials have suggested the false information being spread about vaccines is partly to blame. Childhood vaccines, like the MMR, in particular are the target of a conspiracy theory suggesting they cause autism.

“But it certainly was amplified and put on on fire with the [COVID-19] pandemic, given the misinformation that happened during the pandemic around the safety of vaccine, we’re still seeing that today,” Totoraitis said.

Local officials, like the mayor and the health commissioner are trying to push back against this and encouraging families to check their vaccination status and get vaccinated.

“I think it’s important that we trust the science, right, trust the science,” Mayor Johnson said. “That we trust doctors, that we trust the professionals in this field.”

Medical and public health officials agree, Measles is a preventable disease and the easiest way to prevent it is vaccination. The MMR vaccine was developed in the early 1960s. Before that, several hundred people died a year from measles, according to Gutzeit.

The vaccine is “safe and effective” and decades of research have demonstrated the vaccine’s ability to protect against the spread of measles, Gutzeit said.

The health department has been preparing for a potential measles outbreak, running tabletop scenarios with health departments, school systems and local governments for a public health response. If there is an outbreak, the families of infected children can contact the health department with questions about vaccine status and recent movements. The quarantine period for measles is 21 days.

“We’ve seen time and again how fast diseases like the measles are able to spread when vaccination rates fall far behind, and that’s what’s happening here,” Johnson said. “Right now, there’s time for the city and really the rest of the state to continue to be proactive, to continue to prepare.”