Texas Measles Outbreak Hits 24 Cases

A measles outbreak in a Texas county with low vaccination rates was at 24 cases as of Tuesday. Just two of those are adults, the rest are children, and none of them had been vaccinated against the highly contagious virus, the New York Times reports. Nine have been hospitalized. Gaines County has one of the highest rates of vaccine exemptions in the state, CBS News reports. Last year, 82% of kindergarten students in the county had been vaccinated against measles, about 10 percentage points lower than the state's average. The federal target for measles vaccinations is 95% of the population, but as immunization rates have declined since the COVID-19 pandemic, the country's rate is now below 93%. Experts say that could threaten the country's herd immunity.

One infectious disease expert calls the Texas outbreak "completely preventable," and another tells the Times that with vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination as the Trump administration's health secretary, "There's a feeling this is going to be more and more common." Measles causes symptoms including fever, cough, and rash, and about 20% of unvaccinated people who catch the virus end up hospitalized. Those under age 5 are at particular risk of complications including pneumonia and brain swelling. (More measles stories.)