Second US child dies of measles, almost 650 ill in southern states, officials say

Texas reported its first measles death, also of a child, in February – marking the first US fatality from the disease in nearly a decade

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Signs point the way to a measles testing centre in the car park of a hospital in Seminole, Texas. Photo: TNS

Published: 11:36pm, 6 Apr 2025Updated: 10:40am, 7 Apr 2025

A measles outbreak has killed a second child in the southwestern United States, authorities said on Sunday, with almost 650 people now infected as the highly contagious disease spreads.

“We are deeply saddened to report that a school-aged child who was recently diagnosed with measles has passed away,” Aaron Davis, vice-president of UMC Health System, a medical centre in Texas, told Agence France-Presse.

The child had been receiving treatment for “complications of measles” in hospital, he said, adding they were “not vaccinated against measles and had no known underlying health conditions”.

As the US grapples with its worst measles outbreak in years, US President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, has alarmed health experts with his past rhetoric downplaying the importance of vaccines.

Kennedy, however, posted on social media on Sunday that “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine”.

He added that his Health and Human Services department and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were supporting distribution of the vaccines in Texas.