Highly contagious disease spreads among Mennonite community as 18 people hospitalized

A measles outbreak in rural west Texas has grown to 124 cases across nine counties, the state health department said on Tuesday, and 18 people have been hospitalized.

The outbreak is largely spreading in the Mennonite community in an area where small towns are separated by vast stretches of oil rig-dotted open land but connected due to people traveling between towns for work, church, grocery shopping and other day-to-day errands.