(Updated March 28) A school-aged child died of measles in Texas Tuesday night (Feb. 25), the first pediatric death from the disease in the United States in over two decades. Declared eliminated from this country in 2000, measles cases have been slowly climbing again along with the number of unvaccinated people.
The Texas Department of State Health Services has confirmed 400 cases in its current measles outbreak (as of March 28), which has jumped to neighboring New Mexico (where one suspected measles-related adult death was reported on March 6.)
Colorado has reported its first measles case in a Pueblo adult resident who recently visited an area in Mexico experiencing an outbreak.
Known for its characteristic red, mottled rash that often starts on the face before spreading to the entire body, the illness leads to more hospitalizations than most vaccine-preventable infectious diseases. Of the 285 U.S. cases reported in 2024, 40% were hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The symptom range is more than cold symptoms and recovery on one end to death on the other,” said David Higgins, MD, a pediatric preventive medicine specialist with the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “There are also a range of serious complications that can come in between.”
Severe disease is most common in the under-5 and over-20 age groups, accounting for 52% and 39% of the measles hospitalizations in the U.S. last year. The last non-pediatric U.S. measles death was a woman in 2015.
As the outbreak in Texas continues, Higgins, who practices at Children’s Hospital Colorado on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, shared more on what people should know about the disease.