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Another child with measles in Texas has died, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed late Saturday night.
The school-aged girl was recently diagnosed with the viral disease and died at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, the hospital said in a statement Sunday morning.
“The child was receiving treatment for complications of measles while hospitalized,” according to the statement. “It is important to note that the child was not vaccinated against measles and had no known underlying health conditions. This unfortunate event underscores the importance of vaccination.”
This is the second pediatric death amid a fast-growing outbreak that’s infected nearly 500 people in Texas alone since January. An adult in New Mexico is also suspected of dying from measles. The deaths are the first from the disease in the United States in a decade.
As of Friday, the Texas Department of State Health Services said 481 cases of measles had been confirmed, a 14% jump over last week.
That includes six infants and toddlers at a Lubbock day care center who tested positive within the past two weeks.
Two of those children are among 56 people who’ve been hospitalized with measles in the area since the disease started spreading in late January, health officials said.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on X Sunday that he was in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, to meet with families in the community. He said he had spoken to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to offer continued support and that CDC teams had been sent back to the state.
In the post, Kennedy, said, “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”
Kennedy had been expected to attend the child’s funeral on Sunday, according to a person familiar with the plans.
Around 1 to 3 out of every 1,000 children infected with measles die from respiratory and neurological complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And about 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children. The disease can also wipe out the immune system, a long-term complication called “immune amnesia.”
The outbreak that began in Texas in January has since spread to at least two other states.
Nationally, 628 measles cases in have been reported in at least 21 states and Washington, D.C., this year, according to an NBC News tally.
The number is likely a vast underestimate, considering that many people aren’t getting tested for the virus, according to Lubbock’s public health director, Katherine Wells.
Wells and other health officials are now imploring families to get their kids vaccinated against measles.
Two doses of the MMR vaccine are safe and 97% effective in preventing infection, according to the CDC.
The first dose is generally given between 12 and 18 months, and the second is offered around age 5, when a child enters kindergarten.
During an outbreak, however, babies as young as 6 months old can get that first shot.
Erika Edwards is a health and medical news writer and reporter for NBC News and “TODAY.”
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A second child has died in the Texas measles outbreak – NBC News
