From Texas to Chihuahua: how the measles outbreak that leaves at least 14 dead in Mexico originated

Agricultural, indigenous Tarahumara and Mennonitas days coexist in the municipality of Cuauhtémoc, in the border state of Chihuahua, despite not sharing trade, language or religion. They are very different communities from each other, but with something in common: they vaccinate little.

Cuauhtémoc is precisely the epicenter of the measles outbreak in Mexico. This viral disease, which had been eradicated 23 years ago, was imported from the United States to this country in February 2025, when the health authorities of the municipality detected the spread of several children in a primary school in the Swift Current neighborhood, one of the three great Mennonite communities.

There they found the first case: a 9 -year -old boy who had traveled with his family to another Mennonite neighborhood located on the other side of the border in Seminole, Texas. This town, belonging to Gaines County, is one of the most affected by measles outbreak in the United States, according to our NBC sister chain. Seminole is a rural area with Mennonite and Latin population, and has one of the lowest child vaccination rates in the country.

A month after the outbreak began in January 2025, two girls had already died and an increase in hospitalizations in the area had been recorded. The virus has no cure, so vaccination is the most effective way to prevent outbreaks, according to disease control and prevention centers (CDC, in English). In Seminole, the health authorities decided to ask religious leaders, Mennonite radio stations and other figures of that community to disseminate information necessary for the population to be vaccinated.

When the boy returned to Chihuahua, the virus spread among the Mennonite population of Cuauhtémoc. “Contact with their school classmates or other children in games, as this situation begins,” said Telemundo news, the mayor of Cuauhtémoc, Elías Humberto Pérez.

90% of infections in Mexico are concentrated in the state of Chihuahua. Mayor Pérez explains that Cuauhtémoc groups a little less than half of the state’s infections. The outbreak in the municipality initially affected the Mennonites, an Orthodox religious community dedicated mainly to the cultivation of apple fields and, historically, has shown distrust of vaccines.

“We know that there is a high percentage in the Mennonite community that does not trust or does not believe in vaccines,” Pérez said. “Thanks to the coordination with the bosses, with the Mennonite authorities, they also came to come. Moreover, we send vaccination bodies to the Mennonite community to bring this service closer to them more,” he said.

Jacobo Dyck Penner is the leader of the Manitoba neighborhood, the largest of the Mennonite communities in Cuauhtémoc. He is one of the bosses with whom the mayor has had to bring vaccines to these families.

Outside the six and a half health center of the Menonita neighborhood, Dyck Penner explains in an interview with Telemundo news that the community learned of the first case of infection because the child who traveled to the United States became serious. He assures that “he acted immediately”, but “the community is not always open to vaccination, so part of the people who were getting sick were people who were not vaccinated.”

“There are people who hit them very strong, even they were hospitalized; others already gave them little, you can say: fever, they were softer or less aggressive symptoms. They were the spots that came out and with a week and up to two weeks of rest they left with a simple treatment and other people did have to integrate,” he said.

The challenge of vaccinating those who do not trust

Getting residents of this municipality to be vaccinated represents a challenge, religious authorities and leaders say. Communities have several cultural differences: language, beliefs and access to the vaccine.

After learning about the outbreak, Dyck Penner and the Cuauhtémoc authorities communicated. He explains that in cases and virality they decided to convey the information to the community, a task that the members of the Local Ministry of Health could not do directly because most of the Mennonites speak ancient German.

“They made us recommendations and we traded the German and let the community know that there came a virus, measles,” Penner said. “They informed us that they did have vaccines, it was when we disseminated the entire community that there were vaccination campaigns here in (health center) six and a half.”

But vaccination, says Penner, is not a religious mandate but a personal decision of Mennonite families, some of which do not believe in the effectiveness of the measles vaccine. “There was the idea that the best for beliefs were not vaccinated and that is false, simply each family decides, it has nothing to do with beliefs or any church or community leader,” he explained.

The consequences of traffic between borders

But measles has not only affected the Mennonite community. In apple fields, many owned by this religious group, agricultural day laborers work, a part of the Chihuahuan population that also vaccines little. That is why the State decided to bring vaccines to the agricultural fields, explains Leticia Ruiz, Undersecretary of State Health Prevention.

“These agricultural day laborers go to the state of Sonora to work. Some employers take this agricultural and good day population, the cases are developed,” describes Ruiz in an interview with Telemundo news.

It is that many of the agricultural day laborers in Chihuahua migrate from one state to another depending on the crops and cutting seasons. This is how the virus arrived in Sonora, where the Mexican government authorities have already detected a measles death.

“This mobility makes diseases to travel from one state to another: from the same way it arrived,” explains Ruiz.

In Chihuahua, another group very affected by the lack of access to the vaccine are the indigenous Tarahumaras, who speak the dialect of the same name. Only this June 30, two people from this ethnic group – a 6 -year -old girl and an adult of 54 – died from measles, according to local authorities.

Julia Paredes is a recognized Mexican nurse who has managed to give medical attention and vaccines against measles to the Tarahumara community in Chihuahua. To achieve this, he said, he adopted his traditional clothing and learned words in his language. “If a Tarahumara is not vaccinated, it is because that Tarahumara has not arrived a health promoter or a nurse who would convince him, but they do accept vaccines,” he says.

The mayor of Cuauhtémoc reported that they have taken the vaccines to the agricultural fields because the Tarahumaras are also used there. Some of them live in remote places of the Sierra de Chihuahua and that makes access to vaccines difficult.

The propagation of the virus and The 14 deaths –13 of them in Chihuahua – caused a mobilization of the Federal Ministry of Health to initiate a national vaccination campaign, which began more strongly in the epicenter.

“We have arranged a significant number of vaccinators together with the governor of the state of Chihuahua, and the population is being vaccinated intensively. Fortunately, the fence has worked and is fundamentally limited to the state,” said David Kershenobich, secretary of health at the Mañanera Conference on June 29.

For the epidemiologist Alejandro Macías the seriousness of the measles outbreak lies in the low vaccination of the Mexican population. Therefore, he says, the impact has been greater in this country. “The closeness of Texas with Chihuahua made it transmitted from poor vaccination in Mennonite groups in the United States, a population with poor vaccination in Mexico,” Macías explained.

“The conclusion is always the same: a 95%not vaccinated population, especially in pediatrics, will have measles outbreak sooner or later,” he concluded.

Inform: the best prevention

In Mexico, the propagation of the virus was so severe that the federal authorities decided to expand the vaccination age range: from six months to 49 years of age. In addition, they undertook a campaign to take vaccines to the most remote Mexican communities and inform the population of the importance of immunizing.

International organizations such as the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, in English) consider that the biggest challenge to face measles outbreak in America is misinformation and distrust of vaccines. That is why they continue to deny with scientific bases myths associated with vaccines: there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism or have toxic components, for example.

For now, Chihuahua authorities have decided to undertake stricter measures to combat the outbreak, how to make the vaccination booklet mandatory so that a child can be written at the school of any level or ask agricultural producers to be vaccinated.