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The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has tied nine new measles cases to the West Texas outbreak. DSHS has confirmed five new cases in Lamar County and four in neighboring Fannin County, which is new to the Texas outbreak list. Both counties are on the border with Oklahoma.
Lamar is the only county in Texas that remains on the DSHS active outbreak list because it has a high concentration of measles cases and has reported a new infection within the last six weeks. Paris Lamar County Health District confirmed its three most recent measles infections on July 2, and the state has confirmed 28 outbreak-associated cases there.
The total number of measles cases in Texas with confirmed connections to the outbreak that began in Gaines County in January is now 762.
Nationwide, the total number of measles cases is the highest it's been since the vaccine-preventable disease was eliminated in the United States back in 2000. The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed 1,288 measles infections in 38 states. The last time there were this many measles cases in the United States was in 1992.
The surge in measles cases across the country is fueled by the Texas outbreak, and by a precipitous drop in the nationwide vaccination rate. Additionally, 95% of the population should be vaccinated against measles to avoid outbreaks. Only 92.7% of the nation's kindergartners were vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
In Bexar County, 94.4% of kindergartners were vaccinated in 2024, but there are individual schools in San Antonio with much lower vaccination rates, leaving them vulnerable to the rapid spread of the highly contagious virus if an infection is introduced.
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