Second child dies in Texas measles outbreak; health chief Kennedy now calls vaccine best protection

WASHINGTON - A second child with measles has died in Texas, state officials said on April 6, in an outbreak of the childhood disease that has resulted in nearly 500 cases in Texas and has spread across 22 states.

The school-age child, who was unvaccinated and had no underlying health conditions, died on April 3 in the hospital from measles pulmonary failure, said the Texas Department of State Health Services.

“The child was receiving treatment for complications of measles while hospitalised,” Mr Aaron Davis, a spokesman for UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, said in an e-mail.

It is the second death of a child in Texas since the measles outbreak began in late January.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, in a post on social media platform X, identified the child as eight-year-old Daisy Hildebrand.

Mr Kennedy, who has been an anti-vaccine advocate and has previously said vaccination is a personal choice, on April 6 said vaccines are the best protection against measles.

“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” he said on X. He said that as at April 6, there were 642 confirmed cases of measles, 499 of those in Texas.

Mr Kennedy said in his post that he visited Texas to comfort the Hildebrand family after their daughter’s death. He added that he got to know the family of Kayley Fehr, the first child in Texas to die in the measles outbreak, “after she passed away in February”.

Mr Kennedy said teams from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been redeployed to Texas at the request of the state’s governor, Mr Greg Abbott.

Mr Kennedy has previously recommended Vitamin A as a measles treatment, along with good nutrition. While Vitamin A has been shown in some studies in developing countries to lessen the severity of symptoms, it can lead to liver toxicity in high quantities.

Mr Kennedy’s post about vaccines came after Republican US Senator Bill Cassidy, who is also a physician and chair of the Senate Health Committee, wrote on X after the child’s death was disclosed: “Everyone should be vaccinated.”

“Top health officials should say so unequivocally before another child dies,” Mr Cassidy added.

He had backed Mr Kennedy’s confirmation after Mr Kennedy promised not to make changes to vaccine oversight.

The measles vaccine is 97 per cent effective after two shots.

The CDC says on its website that the vaccine is “the best protection against measles”, which spreads through the air when an infected person sneezes or coughs.

Kennedy hearing postponed

Mr Cassidy last week called for Mr Kennedy to appear before the Senate Health Committee on April 10 to discuss the US Health Department’s restructuring in which 10,000 people were being laid off, including from the Food and Drug Administration and CDC.

But on April 4, a committee official said the hearing would not occur on April 10 because seven days’ notice had not been given per committee procedure. No date has been set.

The Texas Department of State Health Services on April 4 reported 59 new measles cases in three days – a 15 per cent jump – for a total of 481 in the state since late January.

Related measles outbreaks have been reported in other states, including New Mexico and Oklahoma. In addition, an unvaccinated New Mexico adult tested positive for measles after dying in March.

As at April 3, the CDC reported a weekly nationwide increase of 124 measles cases, bringing the total to 607 so far in 2025. That compares with a nationwide total of 285 reported cases in 2024.

CDC officials said 97 per cent of US cases are unvaccinated or have a vaccination status that is unknown.

Paediatricians and other doctors are pushing back against vaccine hesitancy and warning parents that vitamin A and other supplements touted by vaccine critics will not protect their children from the highly contagious and potentially fatal disease. REUTERS