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A baby in Texas has died from measles, officers mentioned Wednesday, the primary identified demise within the present massive outbreak in West Texas and the primary demise from measles within the nation since 2015.
The person, described as a school-aged youngster, was not vaccinated. The gender and former well being standing of the kid was not disclosed.
The individual had been hospitalized in Lubbock. To this point on this outbreak 18 individuals within the state have been hospitalized with measles.
The Texas Division of Well being reported Tuesday that the case depend within the outbreak had grown to 124 confirmed instances, over 9 counties. As well as, 9 instances have been detected in New Mexico.
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Provided that there has already been a demise, the outbreak could also be considerably bigger than the variety of confirmed instances recommend, mentioned Paul Offit, an infectious ailments professional at Youngsters’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit famous that the demise price from measles is roughly one fatality per 1,000 instances.
The measles demise is available in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s second week as the pinnacle of the Division of Well being and Human Companies. Kennedy has lengthy argued that various vaccines should not secure and has persevered in linking the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to rising autism charges, regardless that the 1998 research that posited a hyperlink between the 2 was later withdrawn and a number of research have discovered no hyperlink between the vaccine and autism.
To this point in 2025 a minimum of eight jurisdictions have reported measles instances, in line with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention: Alaska, California, Georgia, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York Metropolis, Rhode Island, and Texas. The CDC’s measles depend web site is barely up to date month-to-month and although the newest replace was on Feb. 20, it’s already old-fashioned. It lists the nationwide depend up to now this 12 months at 93 instances, however the Texas outbreak alone exceeds that quantity.
STAT has requested the CDC for touch upon Texas demise.
