MANKATO — Cases of chickenpox rose in Blue Earth County in 2017. But unlike other counties in the state, the cases weren’t clustered and do not indicate an outbreak.
The rise comes as chickenpox cases spiked statewide this year. The latest outbreak came in early December when the Minnesota Department of Health reported a 15-case jump in Hennepin County.
While Blue Earth’s six reported instances of the illness in 2017 were three times higher than the previous high between 2013 and 2016, the cases were neither clustered nor numerous enough to indicate a crisis.
“At this point it’s not indicative of an outbreak,” said Ryan Swafford, the department of health’s south central region epidemiologist. “They’re not in the same time frame and they’re spread out pretty well throughout the year.”
Chickenpox doesn’t have a season like influenza, but like the flu, its outbreaks usually occur among unvaccinated populations.
Health officials encourage families to seek the chickenpox vaccine to keep a child from contracting the illness. Gone are the pox party days when parents would deliberately expose their children to the virus to build immunity.
months and then again right before kindergarten. Jessica Sheehy, physician’s assistant for infectious diseases at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato, said receiving the vaccine at a young age prevents adults from contracting a more severe version of it when they’re older.“I’ve had a couple patients who got it as a adult and the disease is much more significant,” she said.
Along with being contagious, the chickenpox virus can also activate again later in life to cause shingles. For adults who were never vaccinated as children, there’s a vaccine for that, too.