Child in West Texas is first US measles death in a decade
The first measles death in the growing outbreak in West Texas was a school-aged child.
The child was unvaccinated and had been hospitalized in Lubbock, Texas, said Lauren Adams, Lubbock city spokesperson.
This is the first US measles death since 2015, when a woman in Washington state died.
The number of confirmed measles cases reported in an outbreak in West Texas is now at 124, the Texas Department of Health Services said in an update Tuesday, an increase of 34 since late last week. Most of the cases are in children ages 5 to 17.
At President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, he deferred a question about the measles outbreak in Texas to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, who said, “We are following the measles epidemic every day.”
Kennedy said during the cabinet meeting that there had been two measles deaths but Texas officials confirmed Wednesday afternoon there has been only one death. New Mexico officials said no measles deaths have been reported in the state.
Eighteen people have been hospitalized so far in the outbreak. All have been unvaccinated.
Kennedy said that hospitalizations were “mainly for quarantine” but local health officials told CNN most patients were admitted for respiratory issues.
“We don’t hospitalize patients for quarantine purposes,” said Dr. Lara Johnson, the chief medical officer of Covenant Health Lubbock Service Area. “Quarantine is not something that would happen in a healthcare facility. We admit patients who need acute supportive treatment in our hospital.”
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Patients have been needing supplemental oxygen and respiratory support to help them get over viral pneumonia linked to the measles,” Johnson told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta last week.
It’s not clear why Kennedy said there were two deaths. In a response to questions from CNN about Kennedy’s comments, HHS Director of Communications Andrew G. Nixon said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “is aware of the death of one child in Texas from measles, and our thoughts are with the family. CDC continues to provide technical assistance, laboratory support, and vaccines as needed to the Texas Department of State Health Services and New Mexico Department of Health, which are leading the response to this outbreak.”
Kennedy also referenced past measles outbreaks saying, “So it’s not unusual. You have measles outbreaks every year.”
In the press conference Johnson commented, “The United States had really gotten to a point where we just didn’t see these kinds of outbreaks happening. Obviously, that has changed over the last 20 something years, and so we do see outbreaks more frequently, but that that is related to how much we’re vaccinating our population.”
“When we think of about vaccine preventable illnesses, they’re only preventable if we have adequate vaccination rates,” said Johnson.
The bulk of the cases, 80, remain in Gaines County, where the outbreak began, but there has also been spread to eight additional counties. Most of the cases are in people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown. Five cases were reported in people who said they have been vaccinated.
Measles is an airborne illness that can cause rash, fever, red eyes and cough. Severe cases can result in blindness, pneumonia or encephalitis, swelling of the brain. In some cases, the illness can be fatal.
While details on the specific death in Lubbock are still unknown, experts have long warned that measles complications that can result in death in children.
Up to 3 out of 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory or neurological complications, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Specifically, 1 in 20 children with measles will develop pneumonia, the most common cause of death from the disease, according to Dr. Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist with UTHealth Houston who was not directly involved with the Lubbock patient.
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“These outbreaks last between two to six months. That’s a long time. That’s a lot of kids infected … death is rare, but tragic when it happens, but there are a lot of other sequelae, encephalitis, for example, and deafness. There’s a rare neurological disease that can happen. So, as you have more people infected, these sequelae become more common.”
The best way to stay protected against measles is to get vaccinated with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, according to experts.
The Lubbock department of health has opened free vaccination clinics which have given about 70 vaccinations since the start of the outbreak, according to city officials.
Coverage of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is particularly low in Gaines County, where nearly 1 in 5 incoming kindergartners in the 2023-24 school year did not get the vaccine. Other affected Texas counties also fall below a goal of 95%, set by HHS, that’s necessary to help prevent outbreaks of the highly contagious disease.
Given how contagious measles is, health officials warn that cases may continue to rise in West Texas.
“I very rarely say I’m 100% sure of something, but I am 100% sure we will see an increase in cases … Texas as a state is under vaccinated, so there are susceptible people,” Troisi said. She also worries because of the contagious nature of the disease: People don’t show symptoms before they become infectious, and the virus can stay in the air for up to two hours, even after a person with the virus leaves the area.
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“Measles is the most infectious virus we know. However, it’s a harbinger of low vaccination rates, and it is quite likely we will start seeing outbreaks of other diseases that are vaccine preventable as well as these vaccine rates decrease,” Troisi said.
Even the 124 cases identified in Texas are likely an undercount, according to Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He says some children may not be seeking medical care or could still be waiting for laboratory confirmation. Texas health officials have listed several public spaces, including a university campus, a museum and convenience stores, where measles exposures may have occurred in recent weeks.
Hotez worries specifically about an upcoming rodeo in Houston that draws families from West Texas.
“It will continue as long as the virus continues to find unvaccinated kids. And unfortunately, the vaccination rates in many counties in West Texas are still unacceptably low. So that’s why I think it could go on for a while,” Hotez said.
CNN’s Jamie Gumbrecht and Amanda Sealy contributed to this report.
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NEWS & BUZZ
A child has died in the Texas measles outbreak
Pien Huang
Vials of the vaccine known as MMR. It protects against measles, mumps and rubella diseases.
A school-age child has died from measles in west Texas. The death of the child, who was not vaccinated for measles, was confirmed by state and local health officials and comes after weeks of a growing outbreak that spans Texas and New Mexico.
It’s the first reported U.S. death from the illness since 2015.
“It’s predictable, when measles occurs in unvaccinated children and adults,” says Dr. Carol Baker, a pediatrician and infectious diseases specialist who’s retired from the Baylor College of Medicine, “I’m not surprised, but I am so sad.”
More than 130 people have been sickened with measles in the two states, most of them children under the age of 18.
According to NPR’s review of CDC data, the ongoing outbreak in Texas and New Mexico is the largest since 2019, when two closely related outbreaks sickened hundreds in New York.
The outbreak started in Gaines County in west Texas, which has a population of about 23,000. It has been home to a community of Mennonite ranchers since 1977 according to the Seminole, Texas chamber of commerce.
Separately, an adult measles case was confirmed in Rockwall County in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro region of north central Texas. “At this time, we do not believe this case is connected to the West Texas outbreak,” said Dr. Dick Perritt, the county health authority, in a statement posted to social media. “However, our team is closely monitoring the situation to swiftly identify and address any new cases.” Measles is a very contagious respiratory disease that was declared to be eliminated from the U.S. in 2000 due to high rates of inoculation with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, known as the MMR shot.
Before vaccination became widely available in 1963, an estimated 400-500 people died from measles each year and 48,000 were hospitalized.
In the last five years or so, U.S. average school vaccination rates for the MMR shot have fallen below 95% — which is the CDC’s recommended level for preventing outbreaks.
The vaccination rate is far lower in some places, including Gaines County where the rate has dropped to just under 82%.
“During the time before vaccination, measles has a mortality of around 5% and in impoverished areas maybe 20% to 30%,” says Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, who heads up the infectious diseases division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “So this is an entirely preventable death. That’s the tragedy of it.”
He says it’s important that the public knows that “when we don’t have widespread vaccination, we risk these epidemics and that unfortunately, epidemics will eventually result in deaths.”
U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. addressed rising concerns about the situation during a meeting of President Trump’s cabinet on Wednesday.
“We’re following the measles outbreak every day,” Kennedy said in response to a question from a reporter, adding that it’s “not unusual, we have measles outbreaks every year.”
According to the CDC, there have been three outbreaks so far this year. An outbreak is defined as three or more related cases.
In comparison, 16 outbreaks were reported in the U.S. last year, and a total of 285 cases, although not all those cases were associated with outbreaks.
In his comments, Kennedy said “there are two people who have died” during the outbreak — a statement that contradicts official reports from both local and state public health authorities, who told NPR there’s only one confirmed death.
A spokesperson for HHS contacted by NPR did not address whether Kennedy misspoke, but said “CDC is aware of the death of one child in Texas from measles, and our thoughts are with the family.”
Will Stone and Maria Godoy contributed to this report.
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