A child has died of measles in West Texas, the first known death from an outbreak of the disease that is spreading in the state and in neighboring New Mexico, officials said on Wednesday.
Health officials in Lubbock and the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement that the patient was an unvaccinated school-age child who had died in the previous 24 hours.
The officials did not release further information, but said that a news conference was planned for Wednesday afternoon at the Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock.
At least 124 cases of measles have been identified in Texas since late January, mostly among children and teenagers who are either unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown, Texas health officials say. Eighteen have been hospitalized.
Measles is a highly contagious respiratory illness that can be life-threatening to anyone who is not protected against the virus.
Doctors say the best way to protect against the disease is with two doses of a vaccine, which is usually administered to children as a combination measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine. Two doses of the MMR vaccine prevent more than 97 percent of measles infections, according to Texas health officials.
The South Plains region of Texas, where the outbreak has been spreading, has vaccination rates that lag significantly behind federal targets.
New Mexico has also reported an outbreak, with nine cases in Lea County, in the southeastern part of the state, on the Texas border. Four of those cases are children under the age of 18, all of whom are unvaccinated, according to Robert Nott, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Health. None of the cases in New Mexico have led to hospitalizations, he said.
The outbreak comes amid growing concerns among public health experts about declining vaccination rates and the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, as the nation’s health secretary.
Measles can be transmitted when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes. People who are infected will begin to have symptoms within a week or two after being exposed. Early symptoms include high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. Within a few days, a telltale rash breaks out as flat, red spots on the face and then spreads down the neck and trunk to the rest of the body.
Texas health officials have been holding vaccination clinics and encouraging people to get the MMR vaccine.
