HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this week dismissed the measles outbreak in West Texas that killed an unvaccinated child as “not unusual” and appeared to misstate a number of key facts.
Kennedy, a vaccine critic, on Wednesday claimed that most who had been hospitalized were there only for “quarantine.” Lara Johnson, MD, of Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, where the child who died was treated, contested that characterization.
“We don’t hospitalize patients for quarantine purposes,” said Johnson, Covenant’s chief medical officer. Texas health department data show that a majority of the reported measles cases are in children.
Kennedy also seemed to misspeak in saying two people had died of measles. Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesman, later clarified that the CDC has identified only one death.
The federal government is providing vaccines as well as technical and laboratory support in West Texas, but the state health department is leading the response, Nixon said.
A number of patients have been hospitalized at Covenant, including the outbreak’s first identified case, hospital officials said.
Some patients’ respiratory issues progressed to bacterial pneumonia, and they needed an oxygen tube to breathe, Johnson told the Associated Press. Others had to be intubated, though Johnson declined to say how many due to privacy concerns.
“Unfortunately, like so many viruses, there aren’t any specific treatments for measles,” she said. “What we’re doing is providing supportive care, helping support the patients as they hopefully recover.”
The U.S. had considered measles — a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to 2 hours — eliminated in 2000, which meant there had been a halt in continuous spread of the disease for at least a year.
In the current outbreak, Lubbock’s first case was in an unvaccinated child who sat in an emergency room with a kid who had measles, said Katherine Wells, director of the local health department, calling it a testament to how quickly the virus spreads.
“When you see it in real life, you really realize how contagious it is,” said Wells. “An entire household gets sick so quickly. Whole families are getting sick with measles.”
Texas Cases Represent the Most in Nearly 30 Years
The number of people with measles in Texas stands at 146, health officials said Friday, increasing by 22 since Tuesday.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said cases span over nine counties in Texas, including almost 100 in Gaines County, and 20 patients have been hospitalized.
The child who died Tuesday night in the outbreak is the first U.S. death from the highly contagious but preventable respiratory disease since 2015, the CDC said.
On Friday afternoon, Kennedy said in a post on X that his heart went out to families impacted by the outbreak, and he recognized “the serious impact of this outbreak on families, children, and healthcare workers.”
Kennedy went on to say in the post that his agency will continue to fund Texas’ immunization program and that ending the outbreak is a “top priority” for him and his team.
The virus has largely spread through rural, oil rig-dotted West Texas, with cases concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton has said.
Gaines County has a strong homeschooling and private school community. It is also home to one of the highest rates of school-age children in Texas who have opted out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% skipping a required dose last school year.
Texas law allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs. Anton has said the number of unvaccinated kids in Gaines County is likely significantly higher because homeschooled children’s data would not be reported.
The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is safe and highly effective at preventing infection and severe cases. The first shot is recommended for children ages 12 to 15 months, and the second for ages 4 to 6 years. Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling, and death.
Vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, and most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks.
Eastern New Mexico has nine cases of measles currently, but the state health department said there is no connection to the outbreak in West Texas.
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