A child who has not been vaccinated died measles west TexasThe first death in an epidemic that started at the end of last month and the first in measles in the United States since 2015.
The death was a “child of school age who was not vaccinated” and had been hospitalized last week, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced on Wednesday. Lubbock health officials have also confirmed the death, but none of the agencies had no more details.
The Lubbock Covenant Children’s Hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The measles epidemic in rural regions of western Texas increased to 124 cases in nine counties, which said that state health officials were the largest in Texas in almost 30 years. There are also nine cases in eastern New Mexico.
“The loss of a child is a tragedy” and Governor Greg Abbott and his wife pray for “the family, relatives and the whole community of Lubbock,” said Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris. He added that the Governor’s office is in “regular communication” with the State Health Department, that epidemiologists and vaccination teams are in the “affected area” and that there are “daily updates and coordination calls” with local health officials.
“The State will deploy all the resources necessary to ensure the safety and health of the Texans,” said Mahaleris.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention American confirmed that it was the first death of measles in the country since 2015. The cases of measles were the worst in almost three decades in 2019, and there was an increase in cases in 2024, including an epidemic in Chicago which reported over 60 years.
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The epidemic is largely propagated in the Mennonite community in western Texas, where small cities are separated by large expanses of open land with petroleum platform stack, but linked to people traveling between cities for work, the church, the grocery store and other races.
The data from Texas Health Department show that the vast majority of cases in the region are among people under the age of 18. Vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella – which is safe and very effective in preventing infection and serious cases – is recommended for children aged 12 to 15 months for the first time, the second arriving between four and six years.
The vaccine series is required for children before entering kindergarten in the country’s public schools. But cases of measles in western Texas have been concentrated in a mennonite community “united and undervacinated”, said Lara Anton, spokesperson for the State Health Department, especially among families who frequent small private religious schools or are educated at home.
The county of Gaines, which has 80 cases, has one of the highest prices in Texas of school children who withdraw at least one vaccine required, with almost 14% of children from kindergarten to 12th year during the 2023-24 school year.
Earlier this month, the new federal health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that a panel would investigate the calendar of infant vaccines that prevents measles and other dangerous diseases. The United States and Social Services department immediately responded to a request for comments.
Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air up to two hours. Up to nine in 10 people who will obtain the virus if they are exposed, According to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention American. Most children will recover measles if they get it, but infection can cause dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, swelling of the brain and death.
The Centers for Disease American American assistance provide “technical assistance, laboratory support and vaccines if necessary” in western Texas, said the AP agency, but state health service takes the lead in the epidemic survey.
–The writers of the AP Jim Virtuno, Jonel Aleccia and Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press