Measles cases in Texas rise to 422, state health department says

(Reuters) - The Texas health department reported 422 cases of measles in the state on Tuesday, an increase from 400 on March 28, as the United States battles one of the largest outbreaks of the disease in the past decade.

Cases in Gaines County, the center of the current measles outbreak in the U.S. that started in late January, rose to 280 from 270 on Friday, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.

New Mexico reported four additional measles cases from March 28, taking the total to 48 in the state, its health department said.

Most of New Mexico's cases were reported in Lea County, which is adjacent to Gaines County in Texas.

Oklahoma also reported an additional case since its last report on Friday, bringing the total in the state to 10.

On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were a total of 483 confirmed measles cases in the country as of March 27, more than last year's nationwide count of 285.

Infectious disease experts warned last week low vaccination rates can make the population vulnerable to the highly contagious measles and expect the outbreak to spread further in the next few weeks.

Measles cases have been reported in 20 U.S. jurisdictions so far this year - Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Washington. (This story has been refiled to remove the stray word 'spread' in paragraph 7)

(Reporting by Mariam Sunny, Christy Santhosh and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Krishna Chandra Eluri)