Texas measles outbreak rises to 146 cases including unvaccinated childs death

The number of people with measles in Texas increased to 146 in an outbreak that led this week to the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, health officials said Friday.The number of cases — Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years — increased by 22 since Tuesday.The Texas Department of State Health Services said cases span over nine counties in Texas, including almost 100 in Gaines County, and 20 patients have been hospitalized.The child who died Tuesday night in the outbreak is the first U.S.

death from the highly contagious but preventable respiratory disease since 2015, the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.The child was treated at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, though the facility said the patient didn’t live in Lubbock County.Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official and a vaccine critic, said Wednesday that the U.S.Department of the Health and Human Services was watching cases but dismissed the outbreak as “not unusual.”But on Friday afternoon, Kennedy said in a post on X that his heart went out to families impacted by the outbreak, and he recognized “the serious impact of this outbreak on families, children, and healthcare workers.”Kennedy went on to say in the post that his agency will continue to fund Texas’ immunization program and that ending the outbreak is a “top priority” for him and his team.The virus has largely spread through rural, oil rig-dotted West Texas, with cases concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton has said.Gaines County has a strong homeschooling and private school community.

It is also home to one of the highest rates of school-aged children in Texas who have opted out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% skipping a required dose last school year.Texas law allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs...