A child who wasn’t vaccinated died in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas, officials there said Wednesday, the first U.S. death from the highly contagious respiratory disease since 2015.
The school-aged child had been hospitalized and died Tuesday night, state officials said, amid the widespread outbreak, Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years. Since it began last month, a rash of 124 cases has erupted across nine counties.
The Texas Department of State Health Services and Lubbock health officials confirmed the death to The Associated Press. The Lubbock hospital where the child had been treated didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official and a vaccine critic, said Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is “watching” cases, though he did not provide specifics on how the federal agency is assisting. He dismissed Texas’ outbreak as “not unusual” during a Wednesday meeting of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members.