Nearly 200 students under quarantine after outbreak of world’s most infectious disease on campus
Nearly 200 students have been rushed into quarantine in North Dakota over fears they were exposed to measles.
The under-18s had all been in school buses or on campus at elementary, middle and high schools at the same time as four patients infected with the ultra-infectious disease.
All 180 students are unvaccinated, with officials saying they must now quarantine for 21 days — the time taken for symptoms of the virus to emerge.
Vaccinated students are not required to quarantine because they are considered to be protected, with two doses slashing the risk of infection by 97 percent.
The students will not leave quarantine until after term ends on May 23, but school principals say that if they aren’t infected they will be able to attend graduation ceremonies.
Williston Middle School and Williston High School are affected, as well as Missouri Ridge Elementary. Together, they have about 5,300 students.
It comes after the US crossed another grim milestone, with the CDC today confirmed that more than 1,000 measles cases have been diagnosed in the country. It puts the tally at 1,001 infections.
This marks only the second time the country has seen this many cases since the disease was declared eradicated nationwide in 2000, with some doctors now worried the country could lose its measles elimination status.
Nearly 200 children have been isolated in North Dakota over fears they may have been exposed to measles (stock image)
Measles is a highly infectious disease that patients can pass on to about nine out of ten unvaccinated people that they expose to the virus.
Symptoms start as a fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes — but then progress to a rash that starts on the head before spreading over the body.
The disease is particularly dangerous to young children, with the CDC saying one in 20 unvaccinated children who are infected develop pneumonia while one in 1,000 suffer from encephalitis — swelling of the brain that can cause permanent damage.
One to three in every 1,000 unvaccinated children who are infected die from the disease.
Officials in North Dakota said that some of the students asked to quarantine had not attended the schools but shared a school bus with the infected patients.
Paula Lankford, spokeswoman for the Williston Basin School District, said teachers would provide materials for quarantined children to use at home.
‘Each of the schools is going to work with those families that are excluded to ensure that they have educational opportunities for their kids and connections with teachers through digital means,’ she told the North Dakota Monitor.
‘What’s obviously on our side is that there is not that much school left. We are done here on May 23rd.’
Williams County, which is home to the schools, had a measles vaccination rate of 71 percent in the 2024 to 2025 school year.
This is well below the 95 percent that scientsits say is needed to prevent an outbreak of the disease.
The CDC says that vaccines are the best way to prevent an infection, with two doses providing 97 percent immunity against the disease.
The Upper Missouri District Health Unit, which serves Williams County, is holding a walk-in vaccination clinic Friday from 8.30am to 6pm. It is at 110 W Broadway, Williston.
Nine cases of measles have been detected in North Dakota overall since the start of this year.
Of the confirmed cases, two are in children under ten years old while five are in children aged between 10 and 19 years.
There is also a case in a 30 to 39-year-old and in a 40 to 49-year-old.
The first case reported this year was in a Williams County child who is believed to have contracted measles from an out-of-state visitor.
