A late summer surge of measles cases is concerning health officials in Minnesota. There are 42 confirmed cases in the latest outbreak, which started in May, according the Minnesota Department of Health.

“We’ve seen a lot of cases,” said Maryam Mohamed, a pediatric nurse practitioner for Children’s Minnesota. “We’re very concerned.”

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She said they’ve seen both patients with early symptoms, including a fever, runny nose and red eyes, and patients who are further along in the illness that have the tell-tale rash.

The illness can be especially severe for infants too young for the vaccine, pregnant people and those who are immunocompromised.

“From an ear infection and pneumonia to encephalitis, which is brain swelling, and death in some cases,” said Mohamed. “It’s viral illness so there’s no treatment.”

Children’s Minnesota has protocols in place to minimize exposure to other patients.

“Whenever any patient comes up, we ask them if they have cough, fever, runny nose or been in contact with someone with measles,” explained Mohamed. “If any of those things are positive, then they get roomed right away in an isolated room. We get alerted as the clinician that’s going to see them so we know and we gear up properly.”

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Children’s Minnesota’s infection prevention department is also in communication with MDH. The state agency is tracking exposures and is alerting families with guidance if they’ve been around someone who has a confirmed case of measles.

“We ask the healthcare providers to notify us as soon as they suspect measles,” said Ruth Lynfield, state epidemiologist and medical director for MDH. “We do have a small window where we can vaccinate close contacts, someone has had an exposure. If they can be vaccinated within three days, it really can decrease the risk of their getting sick.”

All but one of the cases so far have been among patients 19 years old and younger. More than half of the measles cases are in children younger than five years old.

“My concern is high because we have a long way to go in terms of vaccinating our children,” said Lynfield, who said the virus is spreading in daycare, school, and other community settings right now. “As long as we have unvaccinated children, there is always the opportunity for the introduction of measles.”

The vaccine is recommended for children starting at 12 months old. State data shows vaccination rates among kindergartners declined recently and fell from nearly 94% in the 2014-2015 school year to nearly 88% by the 2022 to 2023 school year.

According to Lynfield, there have been a lot of cases within the Somali community during this outbreak, which she said has been targeted with misinformation regarding the COVID vaccine.

“We really, really want to encourage people to take this very safe and effective vaccine,” said Lynfield. “There has been for decades now this misinformation about autism [being linked to the vaccine] and what’s so sad is people have not vaccinated their kids because of that concern and yet the rates of autism have not changed.”

The state agency is encouraging those who are eligible to get vaccinated against the illness. The first dose is typically administered to children 12 to 15 months old. The second dose follows when a child is four to six years old, however, it can be given as soon as a month after the first shot.

“You wait 28 days, you can have that second shot and it’s very effective,” said Lynfield. “That is a recommendation we have been giving to people who are in communities where we are seeing the virus circulating.”