A school-age child died of measles in western Texas. The child was not vaccinated from measles, according to the Lubbock City Health Department.
The death confirmed by Katherine Wells, director of public health at the Lubbock Health Department, is part of a rapid outbreak that has infected at least 124 people (mainly children) in rural western Texas.
The official tally of hospitalized people is 18 years old, according to the Texas Department of State Health Department.
Dr. Lala Johnson, pediatrician and chief medical officer at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, said the number is not up to date.
Johnson said in an email that her team has so far taken care of “about 20” measles children.
She said all of those children were recognized because they had difficulty breathing. None of them were vaccinated from measles.
So far, the outbreak has been limited to parts of Texas, adjacent to New Mexico. The state also reports nine measles cases, but authorities have not said whether they are connected or not.
It is unknown how the outbreak occurred.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Texas Health Department told NBC News that genotyping has linked a strain of measles virus called D8, which is currently in circulation in Europe and the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean region. None of the samples are linked to the vaccine.
This is the first measles death reported in the United States since 2015, when a Washington woman died. Health officials at the time said they were likely exposed to rural clinics in the state where they were experiencing the outbreak.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, widespread use of the measles manpsulverra vaccine (MMR) was considered to have eliminated measles in 2000.
Two doses of shots are 97% effective in preventing illness.
