Traveling home with unvaccinated child from USA will not be easy.

[Admin]

For Somali families in the Twin Cities, traveling back home for visits to East Africa is a big deal.

As is true in many recent immigrant communities, Somali families make the trips so U.S.-born children can visit faraway grandparents and relatives while also learning about their native culture.

But an outbreak of measles this spring in the Twin Cities shows what can happen when children who haven't been vaccinated make the trips.

In February, an unvaccinated 2-year-old of Somali descent from Minneapolis fell ill with measles about two weeks after returning from Kenya. An additional 12 people have since become infected, including six in the Somali community, where fears about vaccine safety have left many unprotected.

In addition, two independent cases have been reported in the state, bringing the total to 15.

"Somalis travel a lot; they take their children back to East Africa, where these diseases are endemic," said Dr. Abdirahman D. Mohamed, a physician at the Axis Medical Center in Minneapolis, which treats many Somali patients.
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