Texas measles outbreak has now reached 279 cases and spread to two new counties

The number of cases in Texas’ historic measles outbreak has risen to 279, and two new counties are reporting infections, state health officials said Tuesday.

The outbreak has now spread to 11 counties, although most cases are centered in Gaines County, located in the southern Panhandle near the New Mexico border, the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) reports.

Thirty-six of the people infected are hospitalized, and all but two of the total number of infected are either unvaccinated or unsure of their vaccination status. The flare-up is the state’s worst in 30 years.

The Texas data also doesn’t reflect the number of cases in nearby New Mexico and Oklahoma, which have now reported 38 measles infections and four likely cases, respectively, according to the Dallas Morning News.

In February, an unvaccinated school-age child died from measles in a Lubbock Hospital, according to DSHS. The death is the first from the highly contagious disease in a decade.

New Mexico officials this month also said an unvaccinated adult with measles died not far from the state’s border with Gaines County. However, health officials haven’t confirmed measles as the individual’s cause of death, according to media reports.

The Texas outbreak began in a Mennonite community with a traditionally low vaccination rate. Health experts have expressed concern that vaccine skepticism spread by right-wing media and political figures is leaving the state susceptible to the spread.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other state leaders have been largely silent as the disease has spread, and Trump administration Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tried to downplay concern.

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This article appears in Mar 5-18, 2025.