First death reported from measles outbreak in Texas
A person in West Texas who was hospitalized with measles has died, the first death in an outbreak that began late last month.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center spokeswoman Melissa Whitfield confirmed the death Wednesday. The age of the patient, who died early in the morning, is not known.
Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 124 cases in nine counties, the state health department said Tuesday. There are also nine cases in eastern New Mexico.
The outbreak is spreading largely in the Mennonite community in an area where small towns are separated by vast expanses of open land dotted with oil rigs but connected as people travel between towns for work, church, grocery shopping and other everyday errands.
Gaines County, which has 80 cases, has one of the highest rates in Texas of school-aged children opting out of at least one required vaccine — nearly 14% of children in the 2023-2024 school year.
Texas Department of Health data shows the vast majority of cases are in people under 18. State health officials have said this outbreak is the largest in Texas in nearly 30 years.
Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 in 10 susceptible people will contract the virus if exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most children recover, but the infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
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