Texas

Measles update: Texas outbreak stalls, U.S. case count reaches a 30-year high, and Mexico expands vaccination

Texas Public Radio | By Bonnie Petrie

Published July 9, 2025 at 12:23 PM CDT

A health worker prepares a dose of the measles vaccine during a measles vaccination drive in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

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The Texas Department of State Health Services has reported no new measles cases linked to the West Texas outbreak this week. However, the state has added two cases that investigators have not been able to connect to the outbreak. They are in Lamar County, on the border with Oklahoma.

Lamar is also the only county that remains an active outbreak county, according to the state, with ongoing measles transmission tied to the outbreak that began in Gaines County in January. Gaines County has dropped off the list of active outbreak counties. Its confirmed case count is 414, the highest in the state.

Nationwide, the number of confirmed measles cases has reached a more than 30-year high, according to tracking by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Its Center for Outbreak Response Innovation (CORI) reported 1,281 measles infections on July 8, the highest since measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. The previous high number was reported in 2019, at 1,274.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updates its count of confirmed measles cases every Wednesday. Last week, the CDC case count stood at 1,267, just under the previous high.

Across the border, Mexico's Health Secretary David Kershenobich has expanded vaccination recommendations as the case count there rises to around 3,000. Most of the cases are in the Texas border state of Chihuahua. As of June 27, Ciudad Juárez, next to El Paso, reported 65 confirmed cases. El Paso County has confirmed 63 outbreak-related measles infections.