Measles: Second child dies after a break in the USA

Another child died in the United States after a measles infection. The health authority in the state of Texas announced that the school child, which had been positively tested for measles, was admitted to a hospital in Lubbock and already died on Thursday by lung failure as a result of the infection. The child was not vaccinated and had no known previous illnesses.

US health minister Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to the affected district to meet the family, as he wrote on the X platform. A child had already died of measles infection there in February. According to local media, it was the first measles disease with death in the United States in ten years.

The United States is currently struggling with an accumulation of measles cases. Kennedy wrote on X that so far 642 cases had been reported in 22 states – 499 of them in Texas. Most of those affected there are children there, according to the Texas Health Authority. Kennedy agreed to the Texas authorities to combat the measles wave and warned that the most effective way to prevent the distribution is a vaccination.

In earlier years, Kennedy had often scattered doubts about the meaningfulness of vaccinations. This is also why there was considerable criticism of his appointment as Minister of Health in the new government of US President Donald Trump.

After the first death in February, the long -time vaccination skeptic Kennedy initially declared that such measles outbreaks would come. For the time being, his ministry could not be reached for a statement on Sunday. When asked by reporters, US President Donald Trump replied whether the measles situation got him, and it was still a relatively small number of illnesses. If the problem increases, “we will have to act very strongly”.

Vaccination opponents argue that the decision on immunization should be made individually. Proponents believe that growing vaccination fatigue has already led to the fact that too few vaccinations in the total population in some areas of the United States have been promoted.

Measles are among the most contagious infectious diseases and can be life -threatening in extreme cases. They are transferred, among other things, via droplets and aerosols that are given, for example, when speaking, coughing and sneezing. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), an infection usually begins with fever, conjunctivitis, runny nose, cough and headache and white to blue and white spots on the oral mucosa.

A few days later, the fever increases and the rash typical of the measles forms with brownish-groaned stains. The disease can lead to lung and brain inflammation and have fatal consequences.