April 6 (UPI) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy told people gathered at a funeral for a second child in Texas who died from the disease that a vaccine is the “most effective” way to prevent it.
“I came to Gaines County, Texas today to comfort the Hildebrand family after the loss of their 8-year old daughter Daisy,” Kennedy posted on the social media platform X. “My intention was to come down here quietly to console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief.”
Kennedy said he had offered federal support to Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, and added that additional teams of CDC investigators have been deployed to Texas in light of the surge in cases.
“We will continue to follow Texas’ lead and offer similar resources to other affected jurisdictions,” Kennedy continued.
The outbreak that took the child’s life has infected hundreds or people in the region and across state lines.
Records obtained by The New York Times show that the girl died Thursday morning from “measles pulmonary failure” at a hospital in Lubbock.
“There is currently a measles outbreak affecting several counties in West Texas, including Lubbock County,” reads a notice on the Lubbock Health Department’s website.
“We are working closely with our regional public health partners to limit the spread of this highly infectious disease by offering vaccine clinics,” the department said.
It is the second confirmed measles death in the United States since 2015. The first death was in February, The Hill reported.
Kennedy has been a known skeptic of vaccines, and at the time of the February death appeared to downplay the importance of inoculations.
“We are following the measles epidemic every day,” Kennedy said then. “Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. “Last year we had 16. So it’s not unusual, we have measles outbreaks every year.”
Lubbock officials said they would be providing the MMR vaccine — which protects against measles, mumps and rubella — for free to anyone more than 1 year old who has not received both doses.
Data from the Texas’ Health and Human Services agency as of Friday shows that some 481 cases have been identified since late January, with 56 of them needing hospitalization.
The agency’s website had not been updated with the most recent death as of Sunday morning, but officials described the first death as a “school-aged child” in Gaines County who was “not vaccinated and had no known underlying conditions.”
Most West Texas cases have been reported in Gaines County, near Lubbock, with 315 patients making up about 65.5% of the total statewide. The majority of cases were children who were not vaccinated or whose vaccination status was not known. Only 10 patients had received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, the number of statewide cases in neighboring New Mexico has risen to 54 as of Friday, state officials said in a news release.
New Mexico authorities are officially reporting one measles-related death in the state, in Lea County, after stating last month that the person had tested positive for measles after their death. That patient was unvaccinated and had not sought treatment for measles.
At the time, the role of the measles virus in their death was still being investigated.
“We are grateful for the response New Mexicans have had in getting their measles vaccination over these last two months,” said Dr. Miranda Durham, the chief medical officer for the New Mexico Department of Health. “Without it, measles outbreaks are more likely to last longer and increase over time.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration, has used a soft approach to increase vaccination coverage in the are to combat measles spread, stating that vaccines are a parent’s personal choice.
A Trump administration official who spoke to the Times said Saturday night that the death of the 8-year-old girl was “still being looked at.”
Measles is one of the most contagious pathogens known and is particularly dangerous to children under the age of 5. The two-dose MMR vaccine series has been shown to be 97% effective at preventing measles spread, which had been eliminated from the United States in 2000 until vaccinations against started to drop.
