Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday appeared to downplay the seriousness of the West Texas measles outbreak that has killed a school-age youngster.
The kid’s demise, the primary from the illness in a decade in the USA, was confirmed by Katherine Wells, director of public well being on the well being division in Lubbock, Texas. The kid had not been vaccinated towards the measles.
The outbreak has to date contaminated at the very least 124 individuals — largely kids — in rural West Texas.
“We’re following the measles epidemic every single day,” Kennedy mentioned throughout a gathering with President Donald Trump’s cupboard on the White Home. “By the way, there have been 4 measles outbreaks this yr. On this nation final yr there have been 16. So, it’s commonplace. We’ve got measles outbreaks yearly.”
Kennedy additionally mentioned that two individuals had died within the outbreak and that the individuals hospitalized have been finished so “primarily for quarantine.”
Wells, of the Lubbock well being division, and one other spokesperson for town mentioned that there was only one measles demise in Texas to date. They mentioned they confirmed it with state well being authorities after Kennedy’s feedback on Wednesday.
If a second demise did exist, town’s spokesperson mentioned, “we’d learn about it.”
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for HHS spokesperson, didn’t immediately dispute the secretary’s feedback however mentioned in an e mail that the CDC was conscious of the demise of 1 youngster.
Dr. Lara Johnson, a pediatrician and the chief medical officer at Covenant Kids’s Hospital in Lubbock, mentioned throughout a information convention Wednesday afternoon that the sufferers who have been hospitalized have been admitted as a result of they have been having bother respiratory and wanted supportive care resembling supplemental oxygen.
“We don’t hospitalize sufferers for for quarantine functions,” Johnson mentioned.
She added that her group has cared for “round 20” children with measles to date. A number of of these sufferers required intensive care. Not one of the hospitalized had been vaccinated towards measles.
The Texas Department of State Health Services has reported 18 hospitalizations to date, however quantity seems to be lagging, she mentioned.
The outbreak has been restricted to components of Texas bordering New Mexico, which has reported nine measles cases. Well being officers in Texas are working to see if the circumstances are related.
It is unclear how the outbreak originated.
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and the Texas Division of State Well being Providers advised NBC Information that genotype testing had linked the outbreak to a pressure of the measles virus referred to as D8 at the moment circulating in Europe and the World Well being Group’s Jap Mediterranean area, which incorporates nations in North Africa, the Center East and Southwest Asia.
Not one of the samples has been linked to the vaccine.
The demise in Texas is the primary measles demise to be reported within the U.S. since 2015, when a Washington woman died after an publicity at a well being clinic. The last time a child died of measles within the U.S. was 22 years in the past, in 2003, in line with the CDC.
Measles was thought-about eradicated within the U.S. in 2000, the CDC mentioned, due to widespread use of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR).
Two doses of the shot are 97% efficient in stopping the illness, and the overwhelming majority of U.S. children get them because the CDC recommends: one dose round age 1, and one other round age 5.
However as vaccine hesitancy has increased over time, fewer children are getting their photographs. The variety of kids with vaccine exemptions reached an all-time high in 2023, the CDC mentioned, of three% of youngsters coming into kindergarten.
In Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the present outbreak, the vaccine exemption price was practically 18% for the 2023-2024 faculty yr, in line with health department data.
Brandy Zadrozny contributed.
