A week after reporting a child with measles traveled through the region while contagious, Virginia public health officials on Tuesday reported the case of another young child with the illness and warned of possible public exposures.
Both children were 4 or younger and contracted the disease after traveling internationally, but the cases are unrelated, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
As is their practice with these cases, Virginia health officials declined to release more information about the child, including where they traveled abroad, their vaccination status or condition.
Public health experts are warning of potential exposures to measles, a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus, which can remain in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Most people in Virginia have immunity to measles through vaccination, making the risk to the general public low, public health officials said. However, they are trying to identify people who might have come into contact with the virus at the following places:
- PM Pediatric Urgent Care, 2690 Prince William Pkwy. in Woodbridge on Jan. 13 from 4 to 7:30 p.m.
- Inova Children’s Emergency Department, 3300 Gallows Rd. in Falls Church on Thursday from 7:30 to 10 p.m. and again on Jan. 16 from 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
- Inova Fairfax Hospital Women’s and Children’s Building, floors 2-10, located at 3300 Gallows Rd. in Falls Church from 2:30 a.m. Saturday to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Symptoms could develop up to 21 days after the potential exposure, and monitoring for symptoms is especially important for people who are not fully vaccinated or otherwise immune to measles.
Anyone who might have been exposed and is considered to be at risk of developing measles should contact their health care provider promptly before going to a hospital so the facility can prevent spread of the infection, Virginia health officials said.
In the first stage of measles symptoms, which usually start seven to 14 days after exposure, most people have a fever greater than 101 degrees, runny nose, watery red eyes and cough. The second stage starts three to five days after symptoms start, when a rash begins to appear on the face and spreads to the rest of the body.
People with measles are contagious from four days before the rash appears through four days after the rash appears.
Epidemiologists are investigating outbreaks of measles throughout the United States, many of which have been linked to unvaccinated people or people whose vaccination status is unknown. It’s common for regional health officials to report a handful of cases annually in people who contracted the illness while out of the country.
Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded at least 2,242 cases of measles across dozens of states in 2025 as of Jan. 13. More than half of them occurred among children.
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