A youngster in west Texas died of measles, state health officials said Wednesday, the first known fatality in the United States from the highly contagious disease in a decade, as a Texas outbreak grew from a few of cases to more than 130 across two states. According to the Texas Health Department, the infant died overnight in a children’s hospital after not being vaccinated against the sickness.

We’ve had so many children come in, and certainly we weren’t expecting a mortality so early in what we’re witnessing,” said Amy Thompson, CEO of Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, where the kid died in the fourth week of the measles outbreak. During a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine critic who was approved as secretary of health and human services earlier this month, announced that two people had died in the Texas epidemic. His Department of Health and Human Services then corrected Kennedy, confirming one death.

Since early February, at least 124 people have been sick in west Texas, with all but five being unvaccinated and the majority being youngsters, according to Texas health officials. An additional nine cases were reported on Tuesday in eastern New Mexico, near the Texas state line, where the outbreak has expanded to approximately ten counties, according to Texas health officials. Patients have reported symptoms such as a high fever, red watery eyes, nasal congestion, cough, and a rash that starts on the face, according to Lara Johnson, chief medical officer at the Lubbock hospital. According to her, children have received supplementary oxygen and high-flow oxygen, as well as fever-reducing medicines and IV fluids.

New Mexico’s health department has cautioned that “because measles is so contagious, more cases are likely to occur.” According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the death rate from measles, which spreads through the air by respiratory droplets from coughing or sneezing, is between one and three deaths per 1,000 recorded cases. According to the report, the most recent measles mortality in the US occurred in 2015. A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Health Services was not available for comment, but the agency stated in a press statement that 18 persons had been hospitalized with the sickness.

Neither the CDC nor the department responded to requests for comment. Kennedy was nominated to oversee HHS against opposition from the medical community and some members of Congress, and he has promised to safeguard existing immunization programs. Last Monday, he informed agency officials that he intended to look into the kid immunization schedule.

‘A BAD ILLNESS

Lara Anton, a Texas health department spokesperson, told a local ABC affiliate that the outbreak has primarily affected small children and teenagers, and that the cases were initially concentrated in a “close-knit, under-vaccinated” rural Mennonite community in Gaines County, where children are mostly homeschooled. “It’s all your decision, and you may do whatever you want. It’s just that the community doesn’t seek regular medical treatment,” Anton told ABC.

It is unclear how the first individual was infected, and there is no evidence that any early patients traveled beyond the United States, Anton told various media outlets. “This will accelerate for a while,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, director of Baylor University’s Center for Vaccine Development in Waco, Texas, and a regular target of anti-vaccine campaigns. “It’s a bad illness,” he remarked, noting that roughly 20% of cases require hospitalisation. “Unfortunately, Texas is the epicentre of it because of our very aggressive anti-vaccine movement,” he further added.

Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, which means there has been no continuous transmission of the disease for a year. In recent years, government health officials have linked certain outbreaks to parents’ refusal to vaccinate their children. In 2024, 285 cases of the disease were reported in the United States from 16 outbreaks, up from 59 cases from four outbreaks in 2023. Texas health officials reported on Monday that other people were likely exposed to the illness when a contagious Gaines County resident traveled to numerous areas in and around San Antonio, which is almost 644 kilometres distant.

The city of Lubbock promoted the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine for unvaccinated children on its website and in free clinics, which began on Tuesday.