Texas measles outbreak tops 500 cases, including multiple at a day care in Lubbock [View all]

Source: AP

By JAMIE STENGLE
Updated 11:46 AM CDT, April 8, 2025

A day care facility in a Texas county that’s part of the measles outbreak has multiple cases, including children too young to be fully vaccinated, public health officials say.

West Texas is in the middle of a still-growing measles outbreak with 505 cases reported on Tuesday. The state expanded the number of counties in the outbreak area this week to 10. The highly contagious virus began to spread in late January and health officials say it has spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mexico.

Three people who were unvaccinated have died from measles-related illnesses this year, including two elementary school-aged children in Texas. The second child died Thursday at a Lubbock hospital, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral in Seminole, the epicenter of the outbreak.

As of Friday, there were seven cases at a day care where one young child who was infectious gave it to two other children before it spread to other classrooms, Lubbock Public Health director Katherine Wells said.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/measles-outbreak-texas-day-care-lubbock-3d90c3ea9050c12dbc74a8f8142a6355