Public health officials are urging anyone who has not been vaccinated against measles to get vaccinated as case numbers in the state climb.

Since mid-September, the Minnesota Department of Health said there have been 25 cases of measles confirmed in two unrelated clusters amid a resurgence of the preventable disease. Six cases are in Fillmore County in southeast Minnesota, and 19 cases are in Todd County in central Minnesota. All involve unvaccinated people.

“There are pockets of unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people across Minnesota, and anyone who isn't vaccinated against measles is at risk — especially right now,” the health department wrote in a press release Thursday.

The median age of Minnesota’s measles cases is about 7 years old. Todd County, which has the most cases, has the lowest vaccination rates in the state for kids born in 2023, according to state data. No one has been hospitalized in Minnesota due to measles this year, but some people have had to seek emergency room care.

Minnesota’s outbreaks are not connected to multiple outbreaks in Wisconsin. In the past month, the number of people infected in Wisconsin has skyrocketed from 166 to 267 measles cases.

The United States declared measles eliminated from the country in 2000, but the disease has had a resurgence due to plummeting vaccination rates, said Jayne Griffith, senior epidemiologist with the health department.

“Up until probably the past couple of years, most of the measles cases that we saw in the United States were sparked by an unvaccinated person who traveled internationally, got infected and then got sick when they returned home,” Griffith said. “That is no longer the case. What we are seeing now in the United States is people just getting infected in the United States.”

The CDC has reported 4,080 confirmed cases in the U.S. so far this year, already surpassing last year’s total count of 2,289. It’s the highest number of reported cases of measles since 1991.

In Pennsylvania, which has seen a particularly large outbreak, at least six people have died from measles in recent months. Two were infants who were too young to receive the MMR vaccine.

Griffith said vaccine skepticism has grown, partly fueled by false claims from top federal government officials. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that childhood vaccines cause autism. And the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many families routine medical care, meaning many kids missed out on their scheduled vaccinations.

Griffith said that if people have questions or concerns about the vaccine, they should talk to their health provider.

“There really is a lot of measles in the United States, and the best way to not have to worry about getting it is to be vaccinated,” Griffith said.

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.