'The situation is out of control': US measles outbreak surpasses 1,000 cases and has already caused three deaths

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on May 9, 2025 at 7:59 p.m.

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More than 1,000 cases of measles have been recorded in the United States since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally on Friday, with the serious and contagious disease making a strong comeback amid growing distrust of vaccines.

"The situation is out of control," American pediatric infectious disease specialist Paul Offit told AFP, describing it as the worst measles epidemic in the country in "probably 30 years."

A major health crisis to which Donald Trump's Health Secretary, vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr., is accused of largely contributing by fueling fears about the vaccine.

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Since the beginning of the year, at least 1,012 cases have been confirmed across 30 of the 50 US states, with Texas accounting for more than 70% of cases, according to an AFP report based on public data from local ministries.

And three people died, including two young children, in the southwest of the country, the epicenter of the epidemic. The last infant death in the United States was in 2003, three years after measles was officially declared eradicated there thanks to vaccination.

Measles causes fever, respiratory symptoms and rash, and in some cases more serious complications, such as pneumonia and inflammation of the brain, which can lead to serious damage and death.

"It is the most contagious infectious disease in the world and it is now spreading like wildfire," warns Dr. Offit, for whom the scale of the epidemic is largely underestimated.

According to multiple health care providers, "the number of cases in the United States could actually be close to 3,000, or even more," he reports.

Many infected people don't go to the doctor "for fear of being forced to get a vaccine or because they don't think they feel bad enough," pediatrician Tammy Camp told AFP from West Texas, where the majority of cases have been recorded.

This underreporting is compounded by the recent layoffs of thousands of U.S. Department of Health employees and drastic funding cuts that are complicating diagnostic efforts, Offit points out.

The outbreak erupted in late January in a rural Texas area home to a Mennonite religious community, an ultraconservative and poorly vaccinated population, reminiscent of the previous major outbreak in 2019—with more than 1,200 cases but no deaths—that occurred in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey.

While the measles vaccine is mandatory in the United States, Americans in much of the country, such as Texas, the second most populous state, can claim an exemption for religious or other reasons.

And the use of these vaccine exemptions has continued to increase in recent years, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic, fueled by growing public distrust of health authorities and pharmaceutical companies.

Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is accused of adding fuel to the fire by spreading false information, such as when he claimed in March on Fox News that the vaccine was "the cause of all the diseases that measles itself causes: encephalitis, blindness, etc."

In another government, "he would have been asked to leave his post before more children died," Professor Offit fumes.

On the ground, his remarks, which oscillate between minimizing the seriousness of the situation, questioning the benefits of vaccination and promoting alternative remedies such as vitamin A, are causing some confusion, confirms pediatrician Tammy Camp.

Some of the children she examines have symptoms related to excessive intake of vitamin A, a supplement that reduces the risk of complications in malnourished people but can be dangerous in excess, she explains.

"We are seeing more and more cases of vaccine-preventable diseases, and it's not going to stop with measles," she warns, citing the recent resurgence of whooping cough, another serious infectious disease.

Before the development of a vaccine in the early 1960s, measles killed hundreds of children each year in the United States and continues to kill tens of thousands worldwide.