Dozens of members of the Mennonite community joined Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s top health officer, in a remote Texas hamlet on an exceptionally cool April day to grieve for an eight-year-old. Within two months, Daisy Hildebrand became the second unvaccinated girl in the neighborhood to pass away from measles.
According to South Plains Public Health Director Zach Holbrooks, Seminole town officials also attended the reception following her funeral to show support for the family. Unlike many of his long days since the outbreak started, there was no discussion about the vaccine that prevents measles deaths this time.
“Their recovery was the main priority,” Mr. Holbrooks stated. “You never want to see anybody pass away, especially a child that young, from any kind of illness, because there is a prevention for it – the MMR vaccine.
Mr. Holbrooks, like other native Seminoles, did not receive a childhood measles vaccination. He was vaccinated in college and again in February when one of the worst measles outbreaks in ten years hit his community.
Over 700 cases have been reported in the US this year. As of Friday, Western Texas accounted for 541 of the illnesses, with 56 people receiving hospitalization. The outbreak is also connected to Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico cases.
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