The measles outbreak centered in the South Plains region of Texas grew to 541 cases across the state on Friday, according to health officials.
The Texas Department of State Health Services reported that 56 have been hospitalized for treatment since the outbreak began in late January. Two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, have died after contracting the virus.
Nearly seven in 10 cases have been in children younger than age 18, and nearly 98% of cases have been in individuals who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or whose vaccination status is unknown. The children who died had not been vaccinated, and they did not have any underlying medical conditions, the DSHS said.
Public health officials estimate that fewer than 30 individuals who have contracted measles — roughly 5% of all cases — are actively infectious. An individual may be infectious up to four days before a rash appears and up to four days after it’s gone.
The Texas outbreak has also spread to New Mexico, which reported 58 cases on Friday, and Oklahoma, which reported 12 cases. New Mexico has reported one suspected measles death, an unvaccinated adult who tested positive for the virus after dying.
The total of 541 cases is an increase of 36 since the last DSHS update on Tuesday.
Three-quarters of the new cases are in Gaines County, which continues to see the lion’s share of cases associated with the outbreak. The small county along the New Mexico border reported 27 new cases on Friday, and has now seen a total of 355 cases during the outbreak.
El Paso County reported three new cases, the first that have been seen in the state’s westernmost county. Two new cases were reported in Lubbock County, which has now seen 36 during the outbreak.
Cochran, Dawson, Terry and Yoakum counties each reported one new case.
The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in 10 counties across the state: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.
Of the 541 cases in Texas, 171 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 203 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17, according to the DSHS.
Only 11 cases have been in people who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine prior to an infection.
Texas has reported a total of seven measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the South Plains outbreak, including four in Harris County and one in Fort Bend County. Most of those cases are associated with international travel, according to the DSHS.
Here’s Kansas:
As of Wednesday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment is reporting 32 positive cases of measles, up nearly 40% from two weeks ago when there were only 23 confirmed cases, according to the 2025 Kansas Measles Outbreak Dashboard.
The measles outbreak is concentrated in the southwestern part of Kansas, with the disease spreading to two additional counties over the past two weeks. Measles cases have now been reported in Finney, Ford, Grant, Gray, Haskell, Kiowa, Morton and Stevens counties.
The KDHE has previously said the confirmed cases in Kansas have a possible link to outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico.
The vast majority of cases, 26, involve children and teens. There have been 10 cases reported in children 4 years old and younger, and 16 between the ages of 5 and 17. The remaining six cases involving patients 18 and older.
Unvaccinated patients — 27 — account for the majority of the cases. Meanwhile, there is one case involving a patient not appropriately vaccinated for their age, two patients whose vaccinated status was being verified and one where the status was unable to be verified. Only one patient had been appropriately vaccinated for their age, according to the health department. So far there has been one hospitalization and no deaths.
Here’s Ohio.
The Ohio Department of Health confirmed 20 measles cases in the state as of Thursday: 11 in Ashtabula County near Cleveland, seven in Knox County and one each in Allen and Holmes counties.
Ohio is not including non-residents in its count, a state health department spokesperson told The Associated Press. The Knox County outbreak in east-central Ohio has infected a total 14 people, according to a news release from the county health department, but seven of them do not live in Ohio. A measles outbreak in central Ohio sickened 85 in 2022.
The outbreak in Ashtabula County started with an unvaccinated adult who had interacted with someone who had traveled internationally.
Indiana is also now reporting measles cases, but they appear to be isolated.
Anyway, I promised you a moment of perspective, and here it is. As noted in that Chron story, there have been 355 cases reported from Gaines County, where this all began. Gaines County has a population of 22,553, which makes those 355 infections about one and a half percent of the total number of people there. If one and a half percent of Harris County’s population had gotten the measles, it would represent about 75,000 people. Think about that for a minute.
And then think about it some more when you read this.
As measles tears through West Texas — infecting hundreds, hospitalizing dozens and claiming the lives of two children — some lawmakers in Austin are pushing bills to roll back vaccine requirements and expand access to exemptions under the banner of “choice.”
Measles, a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, has swept through West Texas communities with lower-than-average vaccination rates, turning Texas into the epicenter of a possible national epidemic with 505 cases identified since late January, including 57 hospitalizations and two deaths.
Two shots of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which has been administered for decades, is the safest and most effective way to build immunity to the virus.
Still, Texas lawmakers have introduced bills to weaken vaccine mandates and make it easier for parents to obtain exemptions for their children — and there’s little indication that the state’s worst outbreak in three decades has changed their thinking.
Read the rest if you can stand it. This outbreak isn’t slowing down, and as vaccination remains the only defense against it, more vaccine clinics are being forced to close because of federal funding cuts, all of which are happening under the lying brain worm in charge. This is the world we live in today. What are we going to do about that?