Texas Child Now First To Die Of Frightening Measles Disease

A young child has died of measles. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) the child was not vaccinated. This is the first death of measles since 2015.

Cases of Measles started to be tracked in 1912, and in the first 10 years there were 6,000 measles related deaths reported. In the 1950s nearly every child contracted measles by the time they were 15, and 3 to 4 million people were infected every year. It is estimated that 400 to 500 people died of the measles out of those that were infected.

In 1978, the United States CDC made it a priority to end measles by 1982. Even though they weren't able to completely eliminate the disease they were able to lower the rate of measles cases by 80%.

By the year 2000, measles was categorized as eliminated from the United States of America. This was made possible because of the vaccination program in the US.

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield made false and unproven claims in the medical journal, The Lancet, that the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) cause autism. It has been almost 27 years since the article was published, and even though the paper was retracted, and Wakefield lost his medical license there are still people not vaccinating their children due to false information.

In 2024 there were a total of 285 cases of measles in the United States for the entire year. The Texas Department of State Health Services has recorded 124 cases as of February 25th, 2025, in the South Plains and Panhandle regions alone.

All statistics were pulled from the CDC and Texas Department of State Health Services.