Unvaccinated child dies in Texas measles outbreak
It is the first death in an outbreak that began last month and the first from measles in the US since 2015.
A child who was not vaccinated has died from measles in Texas – the first death in an outbreak that began last month and the first from measles in the US since 2015.
The death was a “school-aged child who was not vaccinated” and had been admitted to hospital last week, the Texas Department of State Health Services said on Wednesday in a statement.
Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Texas governor Greg Abbott’s office.
The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 124 cases across nine counties, which state health officials have said is Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years.
There are also nine cases in eastern New Mexico.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed this is the first measles death in the country since 2015.
Measles cases were the worst in almost three decades in 2019, and there was a rise in cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.
The outbreak is largely spreading in the Mennonite community in West Texas, where small towns are separated by vast stretches of oil rig-dotted open land but connected due to people travelling between towns for work, church, grocery shopping and other errands.
Texas health department data shows the vast majority of cases in the area are among people younger than 18.
The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — which is safe and highly effective at preventing infection and severe cases — is recommended for children between 12 and 15-months-old for the first shot, with the second given between four and six-years-old.
But the measles cases in West Texas have been concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokeswoman Lara Anton has said, especially among families who attend small private religious schools or are homeschooled.
Gaines County, which has 80 cases, has one of the highest rates in Texas of school-aged children who opt out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% of K-12 children in the 2023-24 school year.
Earlier this month, new health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr said a panel would investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles and other dangerous diseases.
Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours.
Up to nine out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most children will recover from the measles if they get it, but infection can lead to dangerous complications like pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
The US Centres for Disease Control is providing “technical assistance, laboratory support and vaccines as needed” to West Texas, the agency told the AP, but the state health department is taking the lead in the outbreak investigation.
