Measles outbreak in Texas hits 481 cases, with 59 new infections confirmed in last 3 days

(LUBBOCK, Texas) — An unvaccinated school-aged child in Texas has died of measles, the first associated with an outbreak in the western part of the state that has infected more than 100 people.

Lubbock city spokesperson Lauren Adams confirmed the death to ABC News on Wednesday.

In a press release, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) said the child was hospitalized in the northwestern city of Lubbock last week and tested positive for measles.

As of Wednesday, 124 cases of measles have been confirmed associated with the outbreak, according to data from DSHS.

Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, and 18 people have been hospitalized so far, DSHS said.

Children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases with 62, followed by 39 cases among children ages 4 and under.

The outbreak began in Gaines County, which has become the epicenter, with 80 cases confirmed among residents, according to DSHS.

The outbreak has since spread to several counties in the region and is “suspected” to have spread into New Mexico, according to New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH). Nine cases have been confirmed in Lea County, which borders Texas. Of the nine cases, four are among children, according to NMDOH.

“This death underscores the real danger of measles — it’s a severe disease that can take lives despite being preventable with vaccination,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and ABC News contributor. “Every new case is a reminder of why vaccination is critical. Tragically, with an outbreak of this scale, a fatal case was not unexpected, especially among those unvaccinated. Given how contagious measles is, we anticipate more cases in the coming weeks.”

During Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Health and & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to a question about the outbreak, saying the agency was following the cases in Texas.

Kennedy appeared to downplay the outbreak, noting there have been four outbreaks so far this year compared to 16 last year. However, the number of cases in Texas alone amount to nearly half of the 285 cases confirmed in 2024.

“It’s not unusual; we have measles outbreaks every year,” he said.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to humans. Just one infected patient can spread measles up to nine out of 10 susceptible close contacts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Health officials have been urging anyone who isn’t vaccinated to receive the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine.

The CDC currently recommends people receive two vaccine doses, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective. Most vaccinated adults don’t need a booster.

Measles was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, due to the highly effective vaccination program, according to the CDC. However, vaccination rates have been lagging in recent years.

About 93% of kindergarteners nationwide received select routine childhood vaccines, including the MMR vaccine, for the 2022-23 school year, according to a November 2023 CDC report.

This is about the same as the previous school year, but lower than the 94% seen in the 2020-22021 school year and the 95% seen in the 2019-2020 school year, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latter percentage had been the standard for about 10 years.

ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Longer periods of extreme heat has been found to accelerate biological age in older adults by up to two years, according to new research.

More heat days over time correlated with deterioration at the molecular and cellular level in adults 56 years or older, likely because the biological deterioration accumulates over time and eventually leads to disease and disability, Eunyoung Choi, a postdoctoral associate at the University of California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, told ABC News.

Researchers at the University of Southern California studied blood samples from 3,686 adults starting at an average chronological age of 68 years with varying socioeconomic backgrounds across the U.S. and compared epigenetic aging trends to the number of extreme heat days in the participants’ places of residence, according to a study published Wednesday in Science Advances.

“Epigenetic age is one way we measure biological aging, which tells us how well our body is functioning at the physical, molecular and the cellular levels,” Choi said. “…We know that some people seem to age faster than others, and that’s because biological aging doesn’t always match chronological age.”

Regression modeling showed that more heat days, or longer-term heat, over one and six years increased biological age by 2.48 years. Short and mid-term heat also increased biological age by 1.07 years, according to the paper.

Extreme heat was defined as the daily maximum heat index — derived from both temperature and humidity — with a “caution” range of between 80 degrees to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and an “extreme caution” range of between 90 degrees and 103 degrees Fahrenheit, in accordance with the National Weather Service, according to the paper. “Extreme danger” was defined as any heat index level over 124 degrees Fahrenheit.

The researchers compared the epigenetic age of participants from regions with long periods of extreme heat to those living in cooler climates. There was a 14-month difference in epigenetic age between residents living in places like Phoenix, Arizona, than milder places like Seattle, even after accounting other individual and community-level differences, like income, education, physical activity and smoking, Choi said.

“Two people that had identical sociodemographic characteristics and similar lifestyles, just because one is living in a hotter environment, they experience additional biological aging,” she said.

The 14-month differences is comparable to effects seen with smoking and heavy alcohol consumption — two well-established risk factors of accelerated biological aging, the researchers found.

DNA methylation — the process of chemical modification to DNA that tends to change as people age — is “highly responsive” to environmental exposures like social stress, pollution and, in this case, extreme heat, Choi said.

Previous research has linked extreme heat to serious health risks like cardiovascular disease, kidney dysfunction, hospitalization and even death, Choi said. But prior to this research, scientists did not fully understand what is occurring at the biological level before those health issues appear, Choi added.

“The physical toll of the heat might not show up right away as a diagnosable health condition, but it could be taking a silent toll at the cellular and the molecular level,” Choi said.

It’s important to uncover potential hidden effects of heat on the body because it can serve as an “important precursor” before they turn into more serious health conditions, Choi said.

“We can intervene at the earlier stage,” she added.

Humidity also plays a big role in how the body responds to heat, especially for older adults, Choi said.

“As we age, our bodies don’t cool down as rapidly,” she said.

The new research provides a foundation for the development of targeted public health interventions, the researchers said.

“This provides strong evidence critical for guiding public policy and advocacy initiatives aimed at developing mitigation strategies against climate change,” Choi said.

ABC News Medical Unit’s Dr. Jessica Yang contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Five years ago, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a pandemic, leading to stay at-home orders and shutdowns across the U.S. and world.

The nation looks much different since then, and scientists and researchers have learned a lot about the virus, including how it infects people, the best forms of treatment and what puts someone at risk for long COVID.

There are still many questions, however. Health care professionals are working to find answers, such as how many people have truly died, how long the virus spread undetected in the U.S. and its origins.

“We know this emerged in China, around the city Wuhan. That’s very clear,” Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an infectious diseases specialist and a professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, told ABC News. “We know when [the] medical community identified it, but we don’t know quite how long it was circulating before then. I think it’s caused some of the consternation.”

How many people have died of COVID-19?

As of March 6, at least 1,222,603 Americans have died of COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. currently has the highest number of deaths of any country in the world, according to the WHO.

Experts, however, believe the true death toll is higher.

“More than a million people is a tragedy into itself, let’s start with that obvious fact,” Wolfe said. “I think the numbers are really hard to pin down for one key reason.”

Determining the exact cause of death can be complicated, Wolfe explained. Someone could die of COVID pneumonia — a lung infection caused by the virus — or die from a heart attack after contracting COVID.

Another example is an older adult who contracts COVID-19. They may become dehydrated, break a bone — because dehydration negatively impacts bone health — and suffer fatal complications, Wolfe said.

“How you count those outcomes is really important because, to me, that person wouldn’t have had their heart attack or that person wouldn’t have become dehydrated and fallen over and landed in the hospital if not for COVID triggering that event in the first place,” he said. “So, I actually think it’s really important to count those as COVID-associated mortalities, but they’re hard to count. They’re hard to track.”

Globally, more than 7 million people have died due to COVID-19, WHO data shows, although the agency says the pandemic caused an estimated 14.83 million excess deaths around the world in 2020 and 2021.

What is the mechanism behind long COVID

Scientists are not sure what causes long COVID but have identified certain risk factors such as an underlying health condition. Long-COVID symptoms can last for weeks, months or even years and can include — but are not limited to — fever, fatigue, coughing, chest pain, headaches, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, stomach pain and joint or muscle pain, according to the CDC.

Research has found that patients with long COVID tend to have lower cortisol levels and lower testosterone levels.

“There are several questions that we still do not have answers for. What is the mechanism of the disease? Why do some people get more sick than others?” Dr. Fernando Carnavali, an internal medicine physician and a member of the team at Mount Sinai’s Center for Post-COVID Care, told ABC News.

Carnavali said scientists are using machine learning to study groups of long COVID patients in an attempt to determine the mechanisms that cause the condition.

“Do we have a single answer? Not as of yet, and most likely, perhaps we’ll have more than one answer,” he said.

Carnavali said the mechanism may not be the same for every long COVID patient. Additionally, people may have different symptoms due to different genetic predispositions.

“Some of the deficits that we have five years ago still remain, but I think that we should all understand and be hopeful that … researchers using machine learning will [provide] us some of the answers that we need as clinicians,” he said.

When did COVID enter the United States?

It’s still not exactly clear when the virus first entered the U.S. The first confirmed case in the country was Jan. 20, 2020, in a man in his 30s in Washington state, who developed symptoms after a trip to Wuhan.

However, studies have suggested the virus may have been circulating undetected for months beforehand.

Although the WHO was first notified on Dec. 31, 2019, about the mysterious pneumonia-like illness that originated in Wuhan, experts say it is likely that in an age of global travel, the virus was in the U.S. before then.

“It’s more likely circulated before Jan. 1 [2020]. It doesn’t seem unreasonable, November, December,” Dr. Lisa Olson-Gugerty, an associate teaching professor for Syracuse University and practicing family nurse practitioner in emergency medicine, told ABC News. “COVID masquerades itself as a flu-like illness, upper respiratory-like illness, like many other viral illnesses. It’s not easy to say, ‘Hey, I think this must be a new thing, and I’m going to tell everyone.'”

She went on, “I think it takes a bit of collective time to recognize a new viral strain, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable [there were] cases that could have been recognized as COVID before the date of release of information.”

Where did the virus come from?

There are two theories about where the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, originated.

At least four U.S. agencies believe the virus was a result of natural transmission and that the virus jumped from animals to humans at a wet market.

The FBI, the CIA and the Department of Energy – the latter with “low confidence” — believe the COVID-19 pandemic “most likely” was the result of a laboratory leak in China.

Additionally, an April 2023 report from Senate Republicans conceded that “both hypotheses are plausible” but that the evidence points to the virus emerging from an accidental lab leak in Wuhan — and there may even have been multiple leaks.

If the virus did come from an animal, there are questions about which species may have spilled the virus over from animals to humans.

“I’ve seen a lot of conflicting information,” Olson-Gugerty said. “Did it come from a bat? Did it get into raccoon dogs or civet cats? Or was it a lab-created virus in Wuhan, China There does seem to be a jury that’s out.”

Wolfe said we may never know the true origins of SARS-CoV-2, but trying to answer the question helps scientists and public health professionals learn how to mitigate the spread so a pandemic — or even widespread illness — doesn’t happen again.

“This was the same question that happened during the Ebola pandemic, when we had to say, ‘Where did this come from? How can we educate people to minimize this future risk?'” he said. “It was important to examine where COVID-19 came from to try and put things in place that would stop that happening.”

He added, “We certainly, I would say, have better safety mechanisms now in place … so there are some good things that have come out of this.”

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