Forty-two days. That is how long West Texas went without a new measles case, and it is the number that let state officials say on Monday, 18 August 2025, that the outbreak was over.
The figure is not arbitrary. CIDRAP explains that it is double the longest incubation period for measles. State health officials used it to close the books on what the Texas Tribune called the nation’s largest outbreak in 30 years.
Seminole to a dozen counties
It started in late January. The Tribune puts the start in Seminole, while the Dallas Morning News, in a report carried by Governing, places the first cases in Gaines County, next to the New Mexico line. From there the virus reached over 10 Texas counties, Mexico and three more states: Kansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Early on it was linked to a Mennonite community.
The totals are heavy. As of 18 August, 762 Texas cases had been detected, and more than two-thirds involved children. Ninety-nine people, or 13%, were hospitalized, DSHS said. Two school-aged children died. Most of the people who fell ill had not been vaccinated. Experts told the Dallas Morning News the real tally is probably far higher.
The outbreak also pushed the national count for 2025 to the highest single-year figure in 33 years, and it spotlighted falling childhood vaccination rates across Texas.
Who gets credit
DSHS Commissioner Dr. Jennifer A. Shuford credited “a comprehensive outbreak response that included testing, vaccination, disease monitoring and educating the public about measles through awareness campaigns.” She also singled out clinicians. Many of them, she said, identified and treated “a virus that most providers had never seen in person before this outbreak.”
The agency spent more than $10 million fighting it.
Not a clean finish
Officials were careful not to call the danger past. More cases will likely be diagnosed in Texas this year, DSHS said, since measles outbreaks are continuing across North America. Its advice: get two doses of a measles-containing vaccine. Two doses of the MMR vaccine prevent more than 97% of infections, and vaccinated people who do catch measles generally have milder symptoms and are less likely to pass it on.
CIDRAP noted the West Texas outbreak opened what became the worst year for measles in the U.S. since elimination was declared in 2000.
Sources
- State health officials declare West Texas measles outbreak over
- State officials declare West Texas measles outbreak over
- Texas Declares Measles Outbreak Over, Following 762 Cases, Two Deaths
