(Reuters) -The Texas health department reported no new cases of measles on Friday, the first time the state has not recorded an increase since the outbreak began in February.

The state, which is the epicenter of the current measles outbreak, has a total of 742 confirmed cases as of Friday.

The number of new cases continues to decrease, from an average of about 12 per day around the peak to fewer than one case per day recently, Chris Van Deusen, director of media relations at the Texas health department, told Reuters in an email.

“The fact that (we) haven’t had any new hospitalizations reported in more than two weeks gives us confidence there are not major numbers of unreported cases still occurring out there,” said Van Deusen.

The United States is battling one of the worst outbreaks of

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