A pair of Prince George’s County, Maryland, residents who recently traveled abroad tested positive for measles, the Maryland Department of Health said Thursday.
Health officials stressed that these two cases are not connected to a detection of measles earlier this month in a Howard County resident who also went overseas nor to the disease’s outbreak in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
The Prince George’s County Health Department also confirmed one of the cases of measles was affecting a person at John Hanson Montessori School in Oxon Hill. School officials informed parents of this in a letter, though they didn’t specify whether the patient was a student or part of the school’s staff.
“It is with heightened concern that I must share news of a confirmed case of measles at one of our schools, John Hanson Montessori, with the last known exposure occurring on March 12,” Prince George’s County Public Schools Superintendent Millard House II wrote to parents, according to Washington’s WTTG, adding that any measles patient who is unvaccinated for the disease will be kept out of school for three weeks after the most recent case confirmation.
Maryland health officials didn’t say whether the two newest confirmed measles patients were vaccinated.
Due to their recent travel, people in several parts of the D.C. metropolitan area were exposed to the patients on various dates from March 5-17.
People in the international arrival baggage claim area at Dulles International Airport on March 5 and those on the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport terminal shuttle bus, the Metrorail Yellow Line from Reagan and the Silver Line to Downtown Largo station on March 14 could have been exposed.
