


Health officials in Arizona say there are four linked measles cases in Navajo County, marking the state’s first outbreak this year.
The U.S. logged 122 more cases of measles last week — but only four of them in Texas — while the outbreaks in Pennsylvania and Michigan officially ended.
There were 1,168 confirmed measles cases in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Health officials in Texas, where the nation’s biggest outbreak raged during the late winter and spring, said they’ll now post case counts only once a week — yet another sign the outbreak is slowing.
There are three other major outbreaks in North America. The longest, in Ontario, Canada, has resulted in 2,009 cases from mid-October through June 3. The province logged its first death Thursday in a baby that got congenital measles but also had other preexisting conditions.
Another outbreak in Alberta, Canada, has sickened 761 as of Thursday. And the Mexican state of Chihuahua had 1,940 measles cases and four deaths as of Friday, according to data from the state health ministry.
Other U.S. states with active outbreaks — which the CDC defines as three or more related cases — include Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma.
In the U.S., two elementary school-aged children in the epicenter in West Texas and an adult in New Mexico have died of measles this year. All were unvaccinated.
Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.
How many measles cases are there in Texas?
There were a total of 744 cases across 35 counties, most of them in West Texas, state health officials said Tuesday.
Throughout the outbreak, 96 people have been hospitalized.
State health officials estimated less than 1% of cases — fewer than 10 — are actively infectious. Fifty-five percent of Texas’ cases are in Gaines County, where the virus started spreading in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community. The county has had 411 cases since late January — just under 2% of the county’s residents.