A small county in West Texas has 15 measles cases, mostly in school-aged children. Gaines County, which borders New Mexico, has one of the highest rates of vaccine exemptions in the state.

According to the Texas Administrative Code (TAC) Rule §97.7, schools and childcare settings shall exclude unimmunized children for at least 21 days after the last date the unimmunized child was exposed to a measles case.

A measles outbreak is growing in a rural area of West Texas where vaccination rates are well below the recommended level.

West Texas faces a measles outbreak, with 10 unvaccinated people infected, mostly children. Health officials expect more cases and emphasize the importance of the MMR vaccine as vaccination rates fall and exemption requests rise in Texas.

Texas Health and Human Services reports that seven children have been hospitalized with the disease. All were unvaccinated.

A measles outbreak is growing in a Texas county with dangerously low vaccination rates. In late January, two school-age children from Gaines County were hospitalized with measles. Since an estimated 1 in 5 people with the disease end up in the hospital, the two cases suggested a larger outbreak.

On January 30, officials reported two measles cases in unvaccinated, school-age children in Gaines County, which sits at the border of New Mexico and is around 90 miles southwest of Lubbock, Texas. Both children were hospitalized in Lubbock and had been discharged.