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For the third week in a row, Texas has not confirmed any new measles cases linked to the West Texas outbreak. The total number of known outbreak infections in Texas stands at 762. Chris Van Deusen, Director of Media Relations at Texas Department of State Health Services, is cautiously optimistic.
"It appears the height of the measles outbreak is behind us, but we don’t want to let our guard down," Van Deusen said. "If a person who isn’t immune travels somewhere measles is spreading, gets infected, and brings it back to a community with lower immunization rates, we could see another outbreak."
The Texas outbreak began in January in one such community with low immunization rates: a Mennonite community in the South Plains region of West Texas. It quickly spread across Texas and into other states, including New Mexico and Oklahoma, overwhelmingly among unvaccinated people. But most of the cases occurred in Gaines County, where the outbreak began. It has tallied 414 confirmed cases but hasn't reported a new case in more than six weeks, which is 42 days and two incubation periods for the measles virus. This is notable, according to Van Deusen.
"We no longer consider measles to be actively spreading there. The only county where we saw sustained transmission that hasn’t hit that 42 days is Lamar in northeastern Texas," Van Deusen explained.
Lamar is the only county in Texas still considered to be in an active measles outbreak.
Still, the Texas outbreak has fueled a nationwide measles surge that is larger than any in more than three decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Last Wednesday, the CDC reported 1,319 cases in 39 states. The federal agency updates its measles statistics every Wednesday.
The last time the case count was this high was in 1992, when there were 2,126 measles cases. Measles was declared eliminated in the US eight years later, in 2000.
In Texas, measles has left its mark in 2025. Ninety-nine people have been hospitalized with measles complications. Two otherwise healthy but unvaccinated children have died.
