Is It Safe to Fly with My Baby During a Measles Outbreak?

I live in Canada and am flying to the U.S. with my five-month-old next week. However, the various measles outbreaks are making me question whether I should cancel my trip. My partner thinks I’m being overly anxious/cautious.
—Anonymous

These measles outbreaks are both scary and very frustrating. The measles vaccine has been widely used for many decades and has been shown to be extremely safe. Perhaps billions of doses have been given. It’s also an example of an incredibly effective vaccine — in the range of 95% protection after a single dose (typically given at 1 year old) and 99% after two doses (second dose at age 4). It’s hard to understand the resistance to vaccination in this environment, but overall vaccination rates for routine childhood illnesses have declined considerably post-COVID.

For people with older children, this is not a personally challenging situation, because once your child is vaccinated, they are extremely well protected against measles, so there is relatively little to worry about with exposure. The group for whom this has felt the most difficult are parents of kids under 1 — like yours — where they are not yet protected by a vaccine.

Baby on parent's lap on plane — Paul Hanaoka / Unsplash

As of February 2025, 164 total cases of measles had been reported in the U.S. and 106 total cases in Canada. There has been one confirmed death of an unvaccinated child in the U.S. This is the first death from measles in the U.S. since 2015, so it is understandable that people are nervous.

In terms of whether it should affect your travel plans, though, it is important to keep this in perspective. There are 330 million people in the U.S., and most locations do not have a current measles outbreak. If you are planning to travel to somewhere with an outbreak, or to a country with active measles infections, some additional caution is warranted. However, for most travel, this remains a very small risk.