Texas child is first confirmed death in growing measles outbreak

A child in Texas has died of measles, the first confirmed fatality in the state’s worst outbreak in three decades, state health officials said Wednesday.

The unvaccinated school-age child was hospitalized in Lubbock last week, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Officials have reported 124 cases in Texas, mostly in west Texas, since late January, and nine cases in a neighboring New Mexico county. Nearly 80% are children, who are more susceptible to the vaccine-preventable disease.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Katherine Wells, Lubbock’s director of public health. “My heart just goes out to the family. And I hope this will help people reconsider getting children vaccinated.”

Vaccination rates are below average in rural Gaines County, the center of the outbreak, where 80 cases have been reported. The deceased child’s hometown was not released.

During President Donald Trump’s White House meeting with cabinet officials Wednesday, Trump was asked about the measles outbreak and turned to his new secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the country’s most prominent critics of childhood vaccination, to answer the question.

Kennedy said the federal health department is “following the measles epidemic every day.”

Kennedy said he thought there were 124 people who had contracted the disease, mainly in Gaines County, Texas, and “mainly, we’re told in the Mennonite community.” He added: “There are two people who have died, but … we’re watching it, and there are about 20 people hospitalized, mainly for quarantine.”

State health officials have only reported one death.

Kennedy added: “We’re watching it. We put out a post on it yesterday, and we’re going to continue to follow it.”

He appeared to play down the seriousness of the outbreak. “Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year there were 16. So it’s not unusual,” he said. “We have measles outbreaks every year.”

Many patients in rural areas with limited health-care options have been treated at hospitals in Lubbock, one of the closest large cities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children receive two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. One dose is 93% effective against measles and two doses are 97% effective, the agency says.

Public health officials and experts say the Texas outbreak illustrates the consequences of declining vaccination rates. Measles is a highly contagious virus that causes fever and rashes and can also cause long-term neurological complications and death.

In Texas, five of the measles patients were vaccinated; the rest were unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown. Eighteen patients have been hospitalized.

“During a measles outbreak, about one in five people who get sick will need hospital care and one in 20 will develop pneumonia,” the Texas health agency said in a news release. “Rarely, measles can lead to swelling of the brain and death. It can also cause pregnancy complications, such as premature birth and babies with low birth weight.”

The outbreak in Texas comes as Trump elevates skeptics of vaccines to the government’s highest health posts.

Kennedy asserts that the risks of the vaccines outweigh the risk of disease.

Kennedy drew criticism for a 2019 trip to Samoa, where he met with activists who were calling for Samoans to skip measles vaccines five months before the island nation experienced a measles outbreak that infected thousands and killed 83.

But during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy said he supports the measles vaccine and would do nothing to discourage people from receiving it.

During his seven terms in the House of Representatives, Dave Weldon, Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was a leading proponent of the false claim that vaccines cause autism.