A
ccording to the Minnesota Department of Health, the vaccination rate among
Somali-American children dropped from the high 80s to a low of 42 percent last year in
response to the anti-vaccine movement's targeting efforts, fueling the outbreak. But the
disease wasn't conned to the Somali community. It spread throughout the Minnesota
public school system as well, infecting non-vaccinated children.
The disease is nothing to take lightly. At the low end, it causes fever, runny nose, cough,
sore throat and a rash, but it can be deadly, spawning pneumonia, blindness and even
encephalitis. One especially alarming complication lurks in the brain for years after a
person has recovered and mysteriously reawakens, causing seizures, coma and death.
No one who has contracted that complication has survived.
I
t's not just childhood vaccines that parents are refusing. According to the BCBSA
report, only 29 percent of adolescents received a rst dose of the human papilloma virus
(HPV) vaccine before their 13th birthday.
The HPV vaccine rates lag far behind other adolescent vaccines, meningococcal and
Tdap, which have rates of 72 percent and 82 percent, respectively.