Texas: First death recorded in measles epidemic

An unvaccinated minor has died of measles , Texas health officials announced Wednesday, February 26, the first death recorded in the outbreak of the highly contagious disease currently recorded in the region, with more than 130 cases. "The unvaccinated school-age child was hospitalized in Lubbock last week and tested positive for measles," the Texas Department of Health said in a statement, without providing further details.

Officials in the northwestern Texas city said the miner died "within the last 24 hours." Since the beginning of the year, more than 120 cases of measles have been reported in Texas, according to the latest report on Tuesday, and about ten in the neighboring state of New Mexico, raising fears of a resurgence of this serious contagious disease, which had been almost eradicated from the country thanks to vaccination. These infections come as vaccination rates in the United States have declined since the Covid-19 pandemic, and at a time of uncertainty over the policy that the new American Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr. , known for his anti-vaccine positions, will pursue.

For Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, "although multiple measles outbreaks in the United States have not resulted in deaths" in recent years, "it was only a matter of time before this happened." "This death should remind us that there is a reason why the vaccine was developed and that it represents real utility for individuals," he insisted to AFP.

Before the vaccine was developed in the early 1960s, the disease killed hundreds of children each year in the United States. It continues to kill tens of thousands worldwide. Amid growing distrust of health authorities and pharmaceutical companies, more and more Americans are choosing not to vaccinate their children against the disease. The proportion of preschool children vaccinated against measles — which is mandatory — has fallen from 95% nationally in 2019 to less than 93% in 2023, with significant regional variations. Most of the measles cases reported in Texas this year have been in a county with a large population of Mennonites, an ultraconservative religious community.