Unvaccinated child dies in Texas measles outbreak

TEXAS — An unvaccinated child has died of measles in Texas, the first death in an outbreak that began late last month and the first from measles in the United States since 2015.

The death was of a “school-aged child who was unvaccinated” and had been hospitalized since last week , the Texas Department of Health Services said in a statement Wednesday. Lubbock health officials also confirmed the death, but neither agency provided further details.

Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock did not issue a statement.

The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 124 cases in nine counties , which state health officials have said is the largest in Texas in nearly 30 years. There are also nine cases in eastern New Mexico.

“The loss of a child is a tragedy” and Gov. Greg Abbott and his wife are praying for “the family, loved ones and the entire Lubbock community,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said.

He added that the governor’s office is in “regular communication” with the state health department, that epidemiologists and vaccination teams are in the “affected area,” and that there are “daily situation updates and coordination calls” with local health officials.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed this is the first measles death in the country since 2015. Measles cases were the worst in nearly three decades in 2019, and there has been a surge in cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60 people.

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.

Texas Department of Health data shows the vast majority of cases are in children under 18 years of age.

The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine—which is safe and highly effective at preventing infections and severe cases—is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months of age for the first dose, with the second between 4 and 6 years of age.

The vaccine series is mandatory for children before entering kindergarten in public schools nationwide. But measles cases in West Texas have been concentrated in a “tight-knit, under-vaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokeswoman Lara Anton said, especially among families who attend small private religious schools or home-school.

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