North Dakota Measles Cases Reach 4, All in Williams County

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — We’re learning more about North Dakota’s first confirmed measles cases since 2011.

All four are in Williams County and involve people who were not vaccinated.

State health officials are keeping details about the cases to a minimum to protect the patient’s privacy.

They say across the state, toddlers are about eighty percent vaccinated.

Incoming kindergarteners are about ninety percent vaccinated.

That falls short of the ninety-five percent vaccinated population rate to give us herd immunity from the highly infectious disease.

“Lots of times we get very worried about very serious symptoms measles can create. we get kids with pneumonia, we get kids getting meningitis. every kid’s different, which is why we try to prevent kids from getting it so we don’t have to figure out which kids are going to get sicker than others.,” said Dr. Dhilhan Marasinghe, an Essentia Pediatrician.

So far, the 900-some cases in the U.S. have resulted in a quarter of the children under five being hospitalized.