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Measles cases in Texas rose to 663 on Tuesday, according to the state’s health department, an increase of 17 cases since 25 April, as the US battles one of its worst outbreaks of the previously-eradicated childhood disease.
Cases in Gaines county, the center of the outbreak, rose to 396, three more from its last update on Friday, the Texas department of state health services said.
Eighty-seven patients have been hospitalized, the agency said.
An eight-year-old child in Texas died from measles on 3 April, according to health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Health officials in Texas said the child did not have underlying health conditions and the child died of “what the child’s doctor described as measles pulmonary failure”.
An unvaccinated child, aged six, with no underlying conditions died of measles in Texas in late February – Kennedy said.
Researchers have warned that the country is at a tipping point for the return of endemic measles, a quarter century after the disease was declared eradicated in the country.
“The rate of rise in measles cases appears to be slowing down, but it is still concerning that we are seeing more cases adding to the count,” said Sapna Singh, chief medical officer at Texas Children’s Pediatrics.
New Mexico’s health department reported 66 cases on Tuesday, the same as its last update. Most of the state’s cases are from Lea county, adjacent to Gaines county in Texas.
“The ideal situation is to see a few weeks of no increase in the case count before we can have some optimism in the spread slowing down,” said Singh.
US pediatricians and infectious disease experts say the fight against rising measles cases nationwide is being hampered by a lack of forceful advocacy for vaccination from government health officials and statements on unproven treatments that are confusing parents.
Doctors assert that vaccination is the most effective way to prevent infection. Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. The disease has been considered eliminated from the US since 2000.
Other states with active outbreaks – defined as three or more cases – include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
With one-fifth of states seeing active measles outbreaks, the US is nearing 900 cases, according to figures posted Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s confirmed measles cases count is 884, triple the amount seen in all of 2024.
In communities with high vaccination rates – above 95% – diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity”.
But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots. The US saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.
