# We ended measles once. Now a child has died needlessly from a preventable disease. | Opinion
## We ended measles once. Now a child has died needlessly from a preventable disease. | Opinion

In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that measles had been eliminated in the United States. In 2025, one of us announced the death of an unvaccinated child from a measles outbreak − the first such death of a child in the United States since 2015.

As leaders of local health departments in Texas, we are devastated and infuriated. Devastated because an otherwise healthy child succumbed to an illness that one of our safest and most effective vaccines can prevent.

And infuriated because the path from the elimination of measles in the U.S. in 2000 to an outbreak now affecting nearly 150 Texas residents is littered with disinformation about vaccines, coupled with longstanding disinvestment in our nation’s public health system that makes it much harder for us to do our jobs.

### US has the resources to eliminate measles

The first factor: “A highly effective measles vaccine.” We had it in 2000 and we have it today. Before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, 3 to 4 million people were infected each year, resulting in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths. But those numbers plummeted thanks to a vaccine that provides 97% protection against illness over a lifetime. Communities with a 95% measles vaccination rate overall achieve herd immunity − meaning everyone in that community is protected, even those who won’t or can’t get vaccinated.

That’s why we are doing everything we can to quickly increase measles vaccination rates in West Texas and surrounding areas − from sending mobile vaccine clinics directly to neighborhoods to partnering with schools to identify and reach out to unvaccinated students and their families.

These efforts are working. In recent days, dozens of previously unvaccinated children have received this remarkable protection. Parents are getting vaccine questions answered by medical and public health professionals rather than purveyors of disinformation on social media. And families are getting the peace of mind that vaccines can provide.

Opinion: 

### Japanese Endocrinologists Warns Reason Behind Glucose Levels in US


```