Fewer people in North Dakota are vaccinating their children for measles, causing some counties with particularly low vaccination rates to potentially struggle with the contagious and possibly fatal disease. Kindergartener’s vaccination rates have fallen from 94%, to around 90% in the last five years. Since the first child was diagnosed with measles in Williams County, at least eight other people were infected. Seven are people aged 19 and younger. CDC data shows that nine out of 10 unvaccinated children contract the disease. In response to this, the state has ordered students who don’t have the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination to be pulled from three Williston schools for three weeks, as required by North Dakota law. Health and Human Services immunization director Molly Howell states that “measles is one of the most contagious viruses on Earth,” and Sanford Health’s Dr. Avish Nagpal says that the disease is “completely preventable,” and that complications like pneumonia, hearing loss, and a fatal progressive brain disorder that occurs seven to 10 years after infection can be prevented by the “effective” and “safe” MMR vaccine. Experts say that vaccine skepticism is a result of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, as well as the success of the MMR vaccine, as the disease had been considered eliminated in 2000, causing the disease’s risk to leave public consciousness.
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