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An outbreak of measles has hit the state of Texas, with fears that the numbers will rise among those who are unvaccinated.
According to reports, a county in Texas is seeing a rise in measles cases, with worries that there may be more cases to come given the rate of unvaccinated people in the area. At least 10 cases were reported in Gaines County, which is in west Texas on the state’s border with New Mexico. The closest major city, Lubbock, is 87 miles away. Eight of those cases are among school-aged children, a week after two cases were initially reported by Texas Health and Human Services. Measles had been considered eradicated by health agencies in 2000 after there was no continuous spreading of the virus for a year.
Concerns are growing due to seven of those ten cases resulting in hospitalization, but also because Gaines County has the lowest vaccination rates among children in the entire state. Per medical rules, a community can be protected against measles if 95% of the people are vaccinated. Currently, the rate among kindergarten students in Texas was 97% in the 2019-20 school year but declined to 94.3% for 2023-24. In Gaines County, only 46% of students were vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella. The disease can cause severe complications among children, with a death occurring one every thousand cases.
The low vaccination rates are being driven by conspiracies about the vaccines, which has compelled lawmakers to push more than 20 bills to weaken vaccine mandates, including one bill to amend the state’s constitution to make it a Texans’ right to refuse being vaccinated. Notably, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose anti-vaccine stance led to a deadly outbreak of measles in Samoa after a visit in 2019, is currently awaiting approval to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Medical officials are working heavily to get more measles vaccines to those not immunized. “We are going to see more kids infected. We will see more families taking time off from work. More kids in the hospital,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, the chief strategy officer for the Houston-based nonprofit The Immunization Partnership in an interview. The state’s Department of Health Services is continuing to work with South Plains Public Health District and Lubbock Public Health to investigate the outbreak.
