(Reuters) -A deceased resident of Lea County in New Mexico tested positive for measles, the state health department said on Thursday, even though the cause of death was still being investigated.
The patient was unvaccinated and did not seek medical care before death, the department said. This brings the total cases in the measles outbreak to 10, all of whom have been residents of Lea County.
Lea County is near Gaines County in Texas where more than 100 cases and one death in an unvaccinated child have been reported. Texas and New Mexico are at the center of one of the largest measles outbreaks the U.S. has seen in the past decade.
Cases in New Mexico included six adults and four children under the age of 17. Seven of these cases were unvaccinated, while the vaccination history of the remaining three was not yet known.
New Mexico’s health department said it will host two community vaccination clinics on March 11. “The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is the best protection against this serious disease,” Deputy Epidemiologist Chad Smelser said.
(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Arun Koyyur)
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