As measles cases in the USA continue to rise from their highest level in a quarter-century, health officials pondered a drastic step – forbidding those believed to be infected from flying.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 60 new individual instances of measles in Monday’s update, bringing this year’s tally to 940. It's the largest total since 1994, falling just short of the 963 cases reported that year.

Efforts to fight off a disease that has spread to 26 states have led state and local officials to consider requesting the imposition of a rarely used travel ban on infectious passengers, The Washington Post reported.

Eight people from five states were warned the federal government could put them on a Do Not Board list managed by the CDC, and they canceled their travel plans, the newspaper said.

Such tactics may strike some as heavy-handed, but they have been validated through decades of case law, said Mark Ustin, head of the health care compliance and lobbying practices at the New York law firm Farrell Fritz.

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Ustin said the courts have long sided with the government’s authority to protect its citizens’ health, as is the case in mandating vaccines or taking other measures to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

“There are lots of areas where you could argue about the state’s police power versus a person’s right to bodily integrity or a person’s right to religious freedom, but when it comes to mandatory vaccinations, that’s one of the areas where the courts have been very clear that this is perfectly acceptable," Ustin said.

Ustin said the threat of a health travel ban would probably dissuade passengers from attempting to get on a plane.

Two of the eight unidentified individuals hailed from the New York area, center of the country’s biggest outbreak with nearly 800 cases since September between Brooklyn, Queens and suburban Rockland County.

After being advised not to travel because they had been exposed to the measles virus and were not immune, the two New Yorkers opted to stick to their plans until they were dissuaded by the possibility of being placed on the restricted list, the North Jersey Record reported.

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The CDC says the current surge in U.S. measles cases can be traced to travelers who brought in the illness from countries such as Israel, Ukraine and the Philippines, which are experiencing large outbreaks. More than 60% of those travelers were unvaccinated Americans coming back from abroad.

Measles, which causes a high fever, cough, watery eyes and a rash all over the body, is responsible for 110,000 fatalities a year worldwide. It was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 – meaning no new cases were transmitted for at least a year – but has come back largely because of a growing movement of opposition to vaccines.

Health practitioners and numerous studies have confirmed the measles vaccine – administered along with inoculation against mumps and rubella in a single shot known as MMR – is safe and up to 97% effective.

“As the measles outbreak has told us, even if we feel we’ve eradicated measles as we did in the year 2000, the world hasn’t,’’ CDC Director Robert Redfield said. “And so all it takes is a trip to Europe and to run into somebody that has measles and, before you know it, come back to New York, and before you know you’re sick, interact with some others and you have a measles outbreak.’’

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The measles virus is typically spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes, and it’s so contagious that 90% of those exposed will contract the disease unless they’re immune.

The CDC recommends that international travelers be vaccinated at least two weeks before departing. Even if the trip begins sooner than that, the agency says it’s still worth it to get the MMR shot.

Ustin, who has witnessed considerable debate over the religious exemption to vaccines in his home state, said media attention on the health travel ban could lead some people to police themselves and others to keep their planned trips secret.

Ultimately, though, he doesn’t expect it to have a major impact.

“I think you’ll probably see a flurry of additional use now,’’ Ustin said, “but I don’t think what we’re looking at is a sea change in the rules about when people can and cannot fly.’’