US measles cases grow 17% in a week to 712; Now in 24 states

The US now has 712 confirmed cases of measles, a 17% increase over last week in an outbreak that has left two unvaccinated children dead.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 105 new cases Friday. Patients have now been confirmed in 24 states, with 97% of them people who were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.

Texas, the outbreak’s epicenter where the children died, reported 36 new confirmed cases since Tuesday, bringing its total to 541. Neighboring New Mexico, home to one suspected measles death, reported two new cases for a total of 58. 

The CDC’s total US case increase was less than it has been in recent weeks. Confirmed cases grew 26% on April 4, 28% on March 28 and 25% on March 21. The national tally is for cases reported by noon on Thursday. 

Earlier this week at the White House, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the US health department, said measles cases had “plateaued,” adding that the country had done “an amazing job” getting the outbreak under control.

But the latest figures from the CDC could be dramatically underestimating the scale of the current outbreak, public health officials have said. Measles has a mortality rate of about 1 in 1,000.

“If we already have two deaths in Texas, that tells you it’s already in the thousands, not the hundreds,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. 

Kennedy has made a series of inconsistent statements on the outbreak. After first endorsing the highly effective measles vaccine on April 6, Kennedy later promoted a pair of unproven medicines he claimed had “healed” children infected with the virus. There are no established treatments for measles.

The measles virus is highly contagious, according to the CDC, infecting up to 90% of people exposed to a positive case who are not already immune. 

The measles vaccine is 97% effective in preventing infection after two doses and has prevented an estimated 60 million deaths since 2000, according to the World Health Organization.