Measles case confirmed in South Florida teen

MIAMI, Fla. – A case of the measles has been confirmed in the South Florida area.

According to Spectrum Bay News 9’s partner newspaper the Tampa Bay Times, a teen patient in Miami-Dade County has the first infection.

No age, details of the patient or condition has been released.

This is the first case reported since a small outbreak in 2024, which also was in South Florida.

Meanwhile, officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are responding to a larger measles outbreak in Texas.

The CDC said teams will be providing support to local health officials in Brownfield, near Lubbock, for one to three weeks to deal with 159 cases and 22 hospitalizations

Measles is not often seen in the United States, but last week, an unvaccinated child died in the outbreak.

The CDC said the last confirmed measles death in the U.S. was in 2015.

The agency on Tuesday posted a message on X saying that “CDC is on the ground in TX,” indicating that the state had requested federal assistance in investigating and controlling the outbreak.

Measles is a respiratory disease caused by one of the world’s most contagious viruses. The virus is airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It most commonly affects kids.

Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.

There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.

People who have had measles once can’t get it again, health officials say.

The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.

Vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, and most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks.

“In the years leading up to when the vaccine was licensed in 1963, we had about 500 kids a year in the U.S. who would die from measles,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease doctor with NYU Langone Health. “And those were real children, and most of them were previously well kids.

“Some of them obviously had had other medical problems on top of that. But most of them were previously well kids, who went on to die from this disease that is now preventable.” 

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.