500 cases in West Texas measles outbreak as second child dies

A second school-aged child in West Texas has died from a measles-related illness, a hospital spokesman confirmed on Sunday, as the outbreak continues to swell.

Aaron Davis, a spokesperson for UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, said that the child was “receiving treatment for complications of measles while hospitalised” and was not vaccinated. The hospital declined to say which day the child died.

Neither the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Texas State Department of State Health Services include the death in their measles reports issued on Friday. Spokespeople for the state health department and US Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

An unvaccinated school-age child died of measles in February in Lubbock – the first measles death in the US in a decade. In early March, an adult in New Mexico who was unvaccinated and did not seek medical care became the second measles-related death.

More than two months in, the West Texas outbreak is believed to have spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas, sickening nearly 570 people. The World Health Organization also reported cases related to Texas in Mexico.

The number of cases in Texas shot up by 81 between March 28 and April 4, and 16 more people were hospitalised. A team from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is on the ground in Texas assisting with outbreak response.

Nationwide, the US has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.