April 22 (UPI) — Texas health officials said Tuesday reported measles cases have now surpassed 600 with most of it affecting children and teenagers in a historic outbreak.
The Lone Star state reported 624 cases of measles since January, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in an update, adding that it was an increase of 27 new cases since its last update on Friday.
It noted the outbreak is primarily in the vast west Texas region and less than 2 percent, or about fewer than 10 patients, were estimated to be “actively infection” since a reported rash onset date.
Individuals with the highly-contagious virus are infectious four days prior to and four days after rash onset.
Officials say so far 64 patients in Texas have been hospitalized over the course of the outbreak. However, they said this does not account for any number of people currently in hospital.
More than 800 cases have been reported nationwide in the growing outbreak across 25 states with possibly three attributed deaths, according to CDC data updated next on Friday.
Last year, a total of 285 cases reported in 33 jurisdictions, the CDC said.
In Texas, there were two fatalities in school-aged children in the known outbreak area in a number of counties: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.
State officials, who say DSHS experts are working with local health departments to “investigate the outbreak,” added that the school-aged elementary children who died were unvaccinated and had no underlying health conditions.
“Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities,” they warned.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been criticized over his lack of a response to the worsening health crisis, his hands-off leadership style and recent efforts over autism studies as he recently tried to downplay the outbreak.
DSHS pointed to Gaines County in northwest Texas which leads the state with its highest number of 386 confirmed cases within its population of more than 21,400 residents with one of the lowest vaccination rates.
Meanwhile, Texas does not require unvaccinated children to be excluded from daycares. The United States declared measles eliminated from its borders since 2000.
So far only the 1,282 diagnosed measles cases from 2019 may exceed this year’s nationally tally since the virus was declared eradicated within America.
The Mexican state of Chihuahua had 514 reported cases of measles, the state health ministry said Tuesday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the spread in Mexico is linked to the outbreak in Texas.
