To date, North Dakota has confirmed 36 total cases of measles in 2025.
Earlier this year, it was reported that North Dakota had the highest positive measles rate in the country in relation to its total population.
Molly Howell is immunization director for North Dakota’s Department of Health and Human Services. She says the bulk of the state’s cases were confirmed between late April and late May, with two being confirmed this summer. She says one turned out to be an historic confirmation from the May outbreak, meaning it was confirmed later after the fact. The other case, attributed to travel, was confirmed July 2. Howell says no cases have occurred in any vaccinated individuals.
Howell says this has been the largest outbreak of measles in the state since 1978, but says public cooperation has been positive in working to get it under control.
"We did do quite a bit to work with people who had measles; they were cooperative and chose to stay home, which was good - it prevents the spread to others. We also worked with their contacts that we were aware of, and those individuals also stayed home or chose vaccination if that was an option for them, if they were still in the window where vaccination would work to prevent disease. We really did see increased activity in terms of vaccination; and so, for our average doses administered did increase this year compared to last year."
Howell says HHS saw an 82 percent increase in doses of MMR vaccine administration after the initial outbreak. She also says there’s been a slight increase in vaccination rates in infants.
As students prepare to go back to school this fall, Howell says now is a great time to get up to date on vaccines. She says the current measles vaccination rate is about 90 percent, but that 95 percent is preferred to achieve herd immunity protection.
She says HHS will conduct surveys at the end of the year to see if the overall vaccination rate for measles has improved.