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With his clarion call for ‘A World Without Measles’ in 2024, epidemiologist and immunisation specialist Jon Kim Andrus presented the economic, practical and ethical-humanitarian rationales for worldwide efforts to eliminate the disease.1 The WHO defines elimination as the absence of endemic transmission within a given geographical area for at least 12 months as certified by national and regional verification commissions. Since the early 2000s, many countries and regions have gained then lost and sometimes regained elimination status while measles outbreaks have continued to occur regularly. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the withdrawal of US funding from global health further expose the reversibility of gains towards measles elimination. In 2025, the Americas lost their elimination status and, as of 1 July 2026, 331 407 suspected measles cases were reported in 165 WHO Member States. The fragility of elimination calls for a careful reassessment of the logics and strategies of measles control.