Measles clusters hit primary schools in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague & Eindhoven
Health officials in the Netherlands have identified four separate clusters of measles infections at primary schools in the greater Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Eindhoven regions. The number of positively identified measles cases has shot up by over 70 percent just in the past two weeks, according to public health institute RIVM.
Even though three months have not yet passed, the number of infections this year in the Netherlands is equivalent to roughly half of diagnosed infections over the entirety of last year. The organization has already issued at least four statements of concern about measles cases this year.
A total of 45 new measles cases were diagnosed since the beginning of March. That brought the total number of confirmed cases this year up to 108, including the clusters detected at four primary schools in some of the biggest cities in the country.
The school names have not been released. One is located in the Amsterdam-Amstelland region, another is in Rotterdam-Rijnmond, the third is in the Haaglanden healthcare region, and the fourth is in the Brabant-Zuidoost district.
At least 17 people who contracted the virus in 2025 did so in Morocco. Health officials confirmed that three others acquired the virus in Romania. Large epidemics of measles are currently in circulation in both of these countries.
“Several tens of thousands of people in Morocco have been infected with measles, and more than 100 people have passed away as a result,” the RIVM stated on Wednesday. Both countries have been named in previous alerts this year, and the RIVM also expressed concern about tight groups of people gathering in areas of Austria and Germany which are popular for skiing and snowboarding.
The Netherlands also experienced an increase in measles cases last year. The RIVM and the GGD think that this increase is connected to a declining number of vaccinations. A total of 202 cases were reported in 2024.
The last national outbreak was in 2013. Thousands of people were infected with the virus that year.
The disease is usually relatively mild, with symptoms like fever, infected eyes, and spots on the skin. However, a small minority experience a more severe case of the disease, with up to 5 percent suffering from a lung infection, and about one in a thousand infections leads to meningitis. These complications can prove to be fatal.
Measles is highly contagious and spreads through tiny droplets in the air. Someone infected with the virus can also be contagious before showing symptoms, like the typical rash associated with the disease. This can make it difficult to identify clusters in advance and contain an outbreak.
For every contagious person who encounters ten people susceptible to the virus, as many as nine of them may become infected.
