The mumps epidemic in Iowa continued to widen this week and reached 605 cases by Thursday, public health officials said.

Although the highest concentration of cases remained in eastern Iowa, the virus that causes mumps has infected at least one person in half of the state's 99 counties

Two infected airline passengers may have helped spread Iowa's mumps epidemic to six other Midwestern states, health officials said Wednesday.

"These people may have exposed other people on those planes or in these airports," said Kevin Teale, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Health

The U.K. reports its first case of a measles-related death in 14 years.

According to BBC Health, a string of outbreaks mainly in England and Wales's traveling communities has led to 100 cases so far in 2006, compared with 76 in 2005

Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Contributor

Des Moines, Iowa (AHN)- An epidemiologist with the Iowa Department of Public Health reports the spread of a Mumps outbreak in Iowa to other states namely Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin

A 13 year old boy is the first person in the UK to die from measles in over a decade.

The Health Protection Agency says the victim was from a traveling family living in the northwest of England at the time