2 more cases bring Minnesota measles outbreak to 11

The number of confirmed measles cases in an outbreak that began last week in Hennepin County has now risen to 11.

The first three cases were reported last Thursday, and the number of cases has slowly ticked up since then. All of the cases are children ages one through five.

The Minnesota Department of Health confirms nine of the 11 children are unvaccinated. And nine of the confirmed cases are in Minnesota's Somali community, where vaccination rates for measles are much lower than in the general population.

Health officials say they still don't know the original source of the measles, but suspect an unvaccinated traveler brought the disease back to Minnesota. They say it seems to have spread through exposures at child care centers. They expect to see more cases.

"Right now, all the cases that we're seeing have come from a single exposure that we're aware of," Kris Ehresmann, infectious disease director for the Minnesota Department of Health, said Tuesday.

"These individuals have also exposed others and we have yet to see the effects of those exposures," she said.

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