Desmar Walkes, medical director of the Austin-Travis County Health Authority, said lower vaccination rates for measles puts the county at risk for an outbreak like one unfolding in West Texas. (Photo by Matt Hennie)
The Texas measles outbreak has reached nearly 200 cases, with additional cases in Austin, Houston and DFW.
A growing measles outbreak in Texas — including the first reported case in Travis County — prompted elected officials in Austin to urge residents to get vaccinated.
The elected officials — Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, Travis County Judge Andy Brown, and US Rep. Lloyd Doggett — also discussed how legislative efforts in Texas to weaken vaccine requirements and federal funding cuts by the Trump administration would impact local efforts to combat pandemics.
An outbreak that started in West Texas in January has grown to 198 cases, 23 hospitalizations, and one death, with four additional cases of the once-eradicated disease also reported in Harris, Rockwall, and Travis counties. Officials in Austin stopped short of calling it an epidemic, but did repeatedly compare it to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic that exploded in the US in 2020.
“One death is too many in 2025,” said Desmar Walkes, medical director of the Austin-Travis County Health Authority.
Measles can result in life-threatening complications, particularly for young children, pregnant women, and immunocompromised and unvaccinated people, Walkes said. She was flanked by healthcare workers, Watson, Brown, and Doggett. They had a clear message: Raising the measles vaccination rate in the county will prevent an outbreak like the one underway in West Texas.
“This was eradicated in the year 2000 but because of disinformation, because of conspiracy theories, the rate of vaccination for measles has gone down in this city, in this country, in this county,” Brown said during the Feb. 28 press conference. “We should not be here today.”
In the West Texas outbreak, 64 of the cases were children four years old and younger, while 89 cases were children ages 5 to 17, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. In Austin, the measles case was an unvaccinated infant who traveled overseas with family, Walkes said. She declined to disclose other details about the case.
The infection in Austin is the first reported measles case in Travis County since 2019, and that was the first case in 25 years, Walkes said.
Watson said the lessons learned from fighting the coronavirus pandemic will help as public health agencies try to tamp down measles cases in Austin.
“Vaccinations are still the best way for us to address this,” Watson said. “The time we’ve been preparing for is now here. We need to do what we need to do in order to keep this from spreading.”
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said anti-vax rhetoric makes it harder to keep vaccination rates high enough to combat measles, which has reached nearly 200 cases in Texas this year. (Photo by Matt Hennie)
‘Anti-vax ‘rhetoric can lead to death’
While local officials in Austin spoke publicly about the measles outbreak, Gov. Greg Abbott and state lawmakers from the hardest hit areas have remained quiet as the West Texas outbreak grows. The state has no plans to declare a public health emergency, according to the Texas Tribune.
The measles outbreak comes as Republican lawmakers try to undermine vaccine requirements in Texas. Over 30 bills impacting vaccines have been filed so far this legislative session, including one that bans any government entity in Texas from requiring vaccines or proof of immunization, another that proposes a state constitutional amendment affirming a person’s right to refuse a vaccination, and a measure making it easier for parents to opt their children out of vaccinations.
Watson, a former state senator, called the bills “unfortunate.”
“It’s unfortunate that we’re not focusing on what we know to be the science, and the statistics that come with the science,” he said.
“Rhetoric that speaks out against the science can lead to death. Part of the reason we are here is to speak specifically to those things, not play politics but instead focus on what we need to do to keep people healthy and to keep people alive,” the mayor added.
Doggett, a Democrat whose Congressional district includes much of Austin, said there’s less federal help for disease outbreaks like the measles in Texas, putting the blame on the chaos and cuts to health agencies under the Trump administration led by Texas billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
Doggett said the mass firings of federal workers has impacted the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, which provides critical help to local health departments. The cuts include epidemiologists and laboratory scientists that are creating vaccines and cures for “dreaded diseases,” he added.
“I fear another deadly pandemic,” Doggett said. “Some of my colleagues, who are silent, seem to fear a mean tweet from Trump. They are determined to impose deep funding cuts. They are determined to reduce the CDC budget and that will have ramifications across the country.”
Author
Support Our Cause
Thank you for taking the time to read our work. Before you go, we hope you'll consider supporting our values-driven journalism, which has always strived to make clear what's really at stake for Texans and our future.
Since day one, our goal here at Courier Texas has always been to empower people across the state with fact-based news and information. We believe that when people are armed with knowledge about what's happening in their local, state, and federal governments—including who is working on their behalf and who is actively trying to block efforts aimed at improving the daily lives of Texas families—they will be inspired to become civically engaged.
