The school-aged child, who was unvaccinated and had no underlying health conditions, died on Thursday in the hospital from measles pulmonary failure, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.
“The child was receiving treatment for complications of measles while hospitalised,” Aaron Davis, a spokesperson for UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, said in an email.
It is the second death of a child in Texas since the measles outbreak began in late January.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, in a post on X, identified the child as eight-year-old Daisy Hildebrand.
Kennedy, who has been an anti-vaccine advocate and previously has said vaccination is a personal choice, on Sunday said vaccines are the best protection against measles.
“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” he said in the post on X. He said that as of Sunday there are 642 confirmed cases of measles, 499 of those in Texas.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded cases stretching from Alaska to Florida, as well as in New York City.
Texas had reported its first measles death, also of a child, in late February – marking the first US fatality from the disease in nearly a decade.
The death of a New Mexico adult last month was also classified by the CDC as a measles-related fatality.
The vast majority of measles cases tallied by the CDC – 97 percent – are patients not vaccinated against the measles, it said on April 3.
The measles vaccine is 97 percent effective after two shots.
Paediatricians and other doctors are pushing back against vaccine hesitancy and warning parents that vitamin A and other supplements touted by vaccine critics will not protect their children from the highly contagious and potentially fatal disease. (Agencies)
