Vaccines protect children from the measles, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says in a Fox News op-ed responding to concern about the highly infectious disease whose recent resurgence is making nationwide headlines.

Last week, a child who was hospitalized with measles in Texas has died, state health officials said. It marks the first death in the state's latest outbreak — the largest such outbreak in close to 30 years — which has left at least 146 people infected.