Texas officials say 159 cases of the virus have been confirmed as of Tuesday, with one death reported.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed it is on the ground in Texas on Tuesday to respond to an outbreak of measles that has grown to nearly 160 cases as U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the agency is seeing “very good” results.
In a post on social media platform X, the CDC said it is
working with the Texas Department of Health as part of a “rapid response” effort to “tackle urgent public health issues like disease outbreaks,” which will allow the agency to provide its expertise to local officials.
Before the statement, federal health officials had provided lab support and measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines to Texas to mitigate the response, Kennedy
said over the weekend.
In an
interview on Tuesday morning, he told Fox News that CDC officials have treated most of the measles patients in the past two days and are “getting very, very good results” with steroids, cod liver oil, azithromycin, and vitamin A.
“What we’re trying to do is really to restore faith in government and to make sure that we are there to help them with their needs and not particularly to dictate what they ought to be doing,” Kennedy told the news outlet.
Health officials in Texas said in a
statement on Tuesday that 159 measles cases have been confirmed since late January, leading to one death. The lone death involved a child who was not vaccinated against the virus, officials said.
State officials say they have not
pinpointed the source of the viral outbreak, which is considered the worst to have hit Texas in decades.
“For this particular outbreak, we don’t know the individual who introduced it into the community,” Dr. Jennifer Shuford, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, told a Texas House of Representatives panel on Monday.
Officials said the majority of the cases, or 80, were not vaccinated for measles. Five people were vaccinated with at least one dose, and 74 others had an unknown vaccination status.
“The investigations into the cases who are currently classified as vaccinated are ongoing,” state officials said. “A dose of MMR is given to unvaccinated people within 72 hours of their exposure to the measles to lessen the severity of the illness if they get sick from their exposure to the virus. We are looking into if any of these cases received their MMR dose after exposure.”
In an opinion piece for Fox News published this week, Kennedy wrote about the value of the vaccine but stopped short of calling on families to get it, saying the decision is “a personal one.” He urged parents to speak to their health care providers about options.
Last week, the CDC released a statement on measles in the United States,
confirming that as of Feb. 27, nine states have reported cases of the virus in 2025. Other states to see cases include Alaska, California, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Rhode Island.
Measles, a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for as long as two hours, can lead to symptoms such as high fever, cough, conjunctivitis, and coryza, or inflammation of the mucus membrane in the nose. Spots can also appear on a person’s skin before a rash appears about 14 days after a person is exposed, the CDC
says on its website.
Last year, the CDC sent out a “health alert” about what it said at the time was an increase in global measles cases and that health providers should ensure that people traveling internationally have had the measles vaccine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
