A second school-aged child in West Texas has died from a measles-related condition, a hospital spokeswoman said Sunday as the outbreak keeps growing.
The infant was not vaccinated, according to Aaron Davis, a UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, spokesman. He claimed the child was “hospitalized treating measles complications.” The hospital refused to specify the child’s death day.
The fatality is not included in either the Texas State Department of State Health Services or the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measles reports published Friday. On Sunday, spokespeople for the state health department and U.S. Health and Human Services Department did not quickly answer inquiries for comment.
In February in Lubbock, a school-age unvaccinated child died of measles—the first measles death in the United States in ten years. An unvaccinated adult in New Mexico who neglected medical treatment became the second measles-related fatality in early March.
More than two months in, the West Texas epidemic is said to have extended to New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas, affecting about 570 individuals. The World Health Organization also mentioned Mexican Texas-related incidents.r
Between March 28 and April 4, Texas had an increase of 81 cases; 16 more individuals were admitted to hospital. On the ground in Texas, a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is helping to handle outbreaks.
The U.S. has more than twice as many measles cases nationwide than it recorded in all of 2024.
Longtime anti-vaccine campaigner Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has offered a lukewarm statement on the need of immunization against measles, claiming it should be promoted but also casting question on the vaccine’s safety. Early this week, he is anticipated to start a Make America Healthy Again trip across the southern United States.
After two doses, the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination is 97% effective against measles and has been used safely for over sixty years.
Experts and local health authorities believe the epidemic will last several more months, if not a year. Most of the occurrences in West Texas are among unvaccinated individuals and children under 17.
Some fear that measles might rob the United States of its title as having eradicated the disease given multiple states seeing outbreaks of the vaccine-preventable illness.
A respiratory virus, measles may live in the air for up to two hours. The CDC estimates that up to nine out of ten vulnerable persons will get the virus if exposed. Children 12 to 15 months old should have the first shot; those 4 to 6 years old should get the second.