“School-aged child who was not vaccinated” is first reported measles death since 2015
A school-aged child has died from measles amid an outbreak in West Texas, marking the first reported measles death in the U.S. in a decade.
The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed Wednesday that a “school-aged child who was not vaccinated” had died after being hospitalized last week, the Associated Press reports.
The measles outbreak in West Texas has risen to 124 cases across nine counties, the worst outbreak in the state in over 30 years. The majority of the cases center on the Mennonite communities, where many of the children are “undervaccinated,” state health department spokesperson Lara Anton said.
The Associated Press reports that 80 cases are in Gaines County, which has one of the worst vaccination rates among the state, with 14 percent of children opting out of required vaccinations.
While the highly contagious measles was declared completely eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, the rise of the anti-vax movement — which has cast a dark and misinformed shadow on childhood vaccinations — has seen the emergence of outbreaks in recent years, including in Washington state in 2019 and Oregon in 2024.
While children who are infected with measles, a respiratory virus, largely recover without permanent ailments, some cases have lead to blindness, brain swelling, and — in the case of West Texas — death; prior to Wednesday’s news, there had been no recorded measles death in the U.S. since 2015.
The measles outbreak comes amid news that the Trump administration and its health department secretary Robert F. Kennedy — himself a top “superspreader” of vaccine misinformation on social media before launching his political career — plan to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule.
