After Texas child's measles death, infectious disease experts say outbreak is anything but 'usual'

The country’s first measles death in a decade was recorded Wednesday in Texas. Health officials in Lubbock, Texas, say the patient was an unvaccinated school-aged child.

The death comes during the country's largest recent outbreak; at least 130 cases have been recorded since late January in Texas and New Mexico, with at least 18 hospitalizations. Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr said Wednesday that the situation is not "unusual," something disputed by infectious disease experts who note that vaccine hesitancy and misinformation are causing an increase in outbreaks of a disease that the U.S. declared “eliminated” in the year 2000.

Texas infectious disease specialist Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, joins us.