25 cases of measles identified in central, southeastern Minnesota, MDH says

The Minnesota Department of Health says it has identified two separate measles outbreaks in southeastern and central Minnesota, leaded to 25 cases in the last month.The clusters in Fillmore and Todd counties in recent weeks make up more than half of the measles cases in Minnesota this year. According to the state's department of health, all the people who got sick were unvaccinated.Beth Parilla, who manages the Vaccine Preventable Diseases Section with the Minnesota Department of Health, said that the clusters in Fillmore and Todd counties are unrelated to one another but began in similar ways. She said that in each county, they began with someone picking up measles while travelling elsewhere in the United States and bringing the disease back to communities with low vaccination rates. "The more people that get measles, the more likely we are to see people with severe complications," Parilla said, "with a disease like this, we will do our best, but it is really hard to contain measles."