The measles outbreak continues to spread in areas of west Texas and New Mexico and has now reached several other states, including Pennsylvania, California and Oklahoma.
So far in 2025, more than 250 measles cases have been reported across multiple states, resulting in two confirmed deaths, including that of an unvaccinated child – the first death from measles in the US in a decade.
This comes as Robert F Kennedy Jr, the top US health official, continued to sow mistrust about vaccines this week, claiming in an interview on Fox News that, among other things, the measles vaccine “causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause[s]”. These comments arose despite research showing that the side-effects of the measles vaccine are far less serious than those associated with the virus itself.