The Texas Department of State Health Services said on Friday there have been ten confirmed cases of measles in Gaines County. DSHS reported it as an outbreak of measles in the county.

The outbreak in Gaines County, with a population of about 22,000, has grown since two cases were reported in January. All those who contracted measles were unvaccinated, health officials said.

On January 30, officials reported two measles cases in unvaccinated, school-aged children in Gaines County, which sits at the border of New Mexico and is around 90 miles southwest of Lubbock, Texas. Both children were hospitalized in Lubbock and had been discharged.

A measles outbreak is growing in a rural area of West Texas where vaccination rates are well below the recommended level.

Public health practitioners warn that measles outbreaks like the one hitting children in Texas will become more common because of scores of laws around the United States — pending and passed — that ultimately lower vaccine rates.

A measles outbreak is growing in a Texas county with dangerously low vaccination rates. In late January, two school-age children from Gaines County were hospitalized with measles. Since an estimated 1 in 5 people with the disease end up in the hospital,