After a pediatric patient in West Texas died of measles complications, hospital officials are urging the community to take the outbreak seriously, and to educate themselves about the virus and vaccination.

The first measles death in the growing outbreak in West Texas was a school-aged child. The child was unvaccinated and had been hospitalized in Lubbock, Texas, said Lauren Adams, Lubbock city spokesperson. This is the first US measles death since 2015, when a woman in Washington state died.

The first person known to have died from measles in the U.S. in a decade was announced by health officials on Wednesday and described as a "school-aged child" who perished in a children's hospital in West Texas,