Texas [US], April 7: An 8-year-old child in Texas (USA) has just died of measles, in the context of a measles outbreak that has infected nearly 500 people in this state since late January and spread to 22 states in the US.
Reuters on April 7 quoted officials from the Texas State Department of Health (USA) as saying that a child patient had just died at the hospital with lung failure due to measles, with a history of not being vaccinated against measles and having no underlying medical conditions.
This is the second child death in Texas since the measles outbreak began in late January. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the child's name was Daisy Hildebrand.
Kennedy Jr. said on April 6 that vaccination is the best protection against measles. He has been anti-vaccination and said vaccination is a personal choice.
"The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine," he wrote on social media X, adding that there have been 642 confirmed cases of measles, including 499 in Texas.
He traveled to Texas to visit and comfort the family of patient Hildebrand and said that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) force had been mobilized to Texas at the request of Governor Greg Abbott.
The measles vaccine is 97% effective after two doses. The CDC says the vaccine is "the best protection against measles," which is spread through the air when an infected person sneezes or coughs. CDC officials say 97% of measles cases in the U.S. this year have been in people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
Regarding the measles situation elsewhere, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund issued a joint statement on April 3 saying that measles cases in Europe skyrocketed last year to the highest level since 1997.
An analysis by WHO and UNICEF found that there were 127,352 measles cases recorded in the European region in 2024, double the number of cases recorded the previous year.
Children under 5 years old account for 40% of measles cases in the region, and half a million children missed out on their first dose of measles vaccine in 2023.
"Measles is back and it's a wake-up call. Without high vaccination coverage there is no health security," said WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
