It's up to 124 cases now. Five of them were vaccinated.
FIVE OUT OF 124 - that's 4%
Measles, once eliminated in the U.S., sickens 99 in Texas and New Mexico
Health authorities warned of further spread. Most U.S. measles cases this year involved people 19 and under and those without a confirmed vaccination.Nearly 100 people across Texas and New Mexico have contracted measles, state officials say, escalating anxiety over the spread of a potentially life-threatening illness that was declared eliminated in the United States more than two decades ago.Ninety cases of measles — the majority affecting children under 17 — were detected in Texas’s South Plains, a sprawling region in the state’s northwest, the Texas Department of State Health Services said Friday. The spread marks a significant jump from the 24 cases reported earlier this month. The DSHS said “additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities.”Nine other cases were recorded in New Mexico as of Thursday, all in Lea County, which borders the South Plains region. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) urged those in the county with symptoms to call their local health offices.Measles, which is most dangerous to children under 5, can cause a fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes and tiny white spots, called koplik spots. As the disease progresses, some may experience a measles rash, which looks like small raised bumps or flat red spots.There is no specific cure or treatment for measles. One or two in every 1,000 children who contract measles are projected to die, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in 2019, with pneumonia being the most common cause of death.The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000, meaning the disease had not spread domestically for more than 12 months. It credited the achievement to widespread immunization campaigns after the vaccine became available in 1963.However, the national vaccination rate for measles has dropped in recent years, particularly since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Even a small decline in vaccination can significantly increase the likelihood of an outbreak. Measles can “easily cross borders” in any community where vaccination rates are below 95 percent, according to the CDC.Most cases recorded this year have occurred in people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown, the CDC said.The disease’s comeback has occurred in tandem with the rise of anti-vaccine rhetoric propagated on social media and among some public officials.President Donald Trump — a longtime vaccine skeptic — has a mixed record on the subject. His choice for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has a history of spreading vaccine misinformation and recently promised to scrutinize childhood vaccination schedules, blaming them as a potential contributor to the rise in chronic diseases, the Associated Press reported this month.While on the campaign trail, Trump pledged to cut federal funding for schools that required vaccines.In the decade leading up to the measles vaccine’s introduction in 1963, the disease killed an estimated 400 to 500 people in the United States each year and caused an estimated 48,000 hospitalizations annually, the CDC said. So far, about a quarter of the cases recorded this year have resulted in hospitalizations, either to isolate the infected person or to treat complications.- and -
Texas child is first confirmed death in growing measles outbreak
The unvaccinated school-age child is the first confirmed fatality in Texas’s worst measles outbreak in three decades.
LUBBOCK, Texas — A child has died of measles in Texas, the first confirmed fatality in the state’s worst outbreak in three decades, state health officials said Wednesday.
The unvaccinated school-age child was hospitalized in Lubbock last week, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Officials have reported 124 cases in Texas, mostly in west Texas, since late January, and nine cases in a neighboring New Mexico county. Nearly 80 percent are children, who are more susceptible to the vaccine-preventable disease.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Katherine Wells, Lubbock’s director of public health. “My heart just goes out to the family. And I hope this will help people reconsider getting children vaccinated.”
Summer Davies, a physician who cared for the child when they were first hospitalized this month at Covenant Children’s Hospital here, said the patient arrived with a high fever and struggled to breathe without assistance.
The child’s respiratory symptoms grew progressively worse, and then heart problems were diagnosed. Several days ago, the child was moved to an intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator before dying.
The child was otherwise healthy, Davies said.
The patient “could have lived a long, happy life, and it is really heartbreaking when it’s something you know you could have prevented or that is preventable and ended in something like this,” said Davies, a pediatric hospitalist.
Davies said she has seen about nine measles patients during the current outbreak. She had never previously encountered the disease.
While many children recover from measles, some die of pneumonia caused by the virus or a secondary bacterial infection.
Vaccination rates are below average in rural Gaines County, the center of the outbreak, where 80 cases have been reported. The deceased child’s hometown was not released. Many patients in rural areas with limited health-care options have been treated at hospitals in Lubbock, one of the closest large cities.
During President Donald Trump’s White House meeting with Cabinet officials Wednesday, Trump was asked about the measles outbreak, and turned to his new secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the country’s most prominent critics of childhood vaccination, to answer the question.
Kennedy said the federal health department is “following the measles epidemic every day.”
Kennedy said he thought there were 124 people who had contracted the disease, mainly in Gaines County, and “mainly, we’re told in the Mennonite community.” He added: “There are two people who have died, but … we’re watching it, and there are about 20 people hospitalized, mainly for quarantine.”
Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the state health department, said the agency is aware of only one death in the outbreak. She said patients are not being quarantined at hospitals. They are taken there for critical care, she said.
Kennedy added: “We’re watching it. We put out a post on it yesterday, and we’re going to continue to follow it.”
He appeared to play down the seriousness of the outbreak. “Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year, there were 16. So it’s not unusual,” he said. “We have measles outbreaks every year.”
A measles outbreak is defined as three or more related cases. The case tally in Texas in the first two months of the year has eclipsed the annual U.S. case count for each year between 2020 and 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2024, the country had 285 measles cases.
The CDC recommends children receive two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. One dose is 93 percent effective against measles and two doses is 97 percent effective, the agency says.
Public health officials and experts say the Texas outbreak illustrates the consequences of declining vaccination rates. Measles is a highly contagious virus that causes fever and rashes and can also cause long-term neurological complications and death.
In Texas, five of the measles patients were vaccinated; the rest were unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown. Eighteen patients have been hospitalized.
“During a measles outbreak, about one in five people who get sick will need hospital care and one in 20 will develop pneumonia,” the Texas health agency said in a news release. “Rarely, measles can lead to swelling of the brain and death. It can also cause pregnancy complications, such as premature birth and babies with low birth weight.”
The outbreak in Texas comes as Trump elevates skeptics of vaccines to the government’s highest health posts.
Kennedy asserts that the risks of the vaccines outweigh the risk of disease.
Kennedy drew criticism for a 2019 trip to Samoa, where he met with activists who were calling for Samoans to skip measles vaccines five months before the island nation experienced a measles outbreak that infected thousands and killed 83.
But during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy said he supports the measles vaccine and would do nothing to discourage people from receiving it.
During his seven terms in the House of Representatives, Dave Weldon, Trump’s nominee to lead the CDC, was a leading proponent of the false claim that vaccines cause autism.
