ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The number of confirmed cases of measles in Minnesota has jumped to 17, and health experts say they want to get the word out that everyone needs to be vaccinated against the disease.
"We're trying to provide them clear messages about the value of vaccination," said Kris Ehresmann, Director of Infectious Diseases at the Minnesota Department of Health.
"We have had children who also aren't vaccinated who should have been vaccinated," Ehresmann said.
Ehresmann said of the 17 cases, 15 are connected to a child who traveled to Kenya and contracted the disease. Some of the children who later got the disease were too young to get the vaccination. But others, Ehresmann said, simply did not get the shot.
Health officials also say the local Somali community has been especially hit by the outbreak. Of the 17 cases, 7 of them are from the local Somali community.
"Misinformation has got into the community," said Dr. Abdirahman Mohamed, a family medicine doctor at Axis Medical Center.
Mohamed -- and state health officials -- say the local Somali community suspect the MMR vaccine may be behind a trend of autism among Somali youth. Health officials say that fear is simply unfounded.
"There are studies underway why we have a large number of Somali children in the state of Minnesota with autism. We do not know that. But we know that it is not the vaccine that is causing the autism," Mohamed said.
Local health experts have been waging a sort of "information campaign" within the Somali community, trying to reassure parents it's safe for their children to get the MMR vaccine. Already, Mohamed said, they've seen some results from their outreach.
"In the past few weeks we've also seen an uptick in terms of parents seeking vaccinations for their children," Mohamed said.
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