Routine immunization continues to decline among kindergarten children

In the 2021-2022 school year, according to CDC researchers, routine childhood immunizations for kindergarten children will decline, and vaccination rates in this age group have increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. decreased by 2 percentage points.

Last year, approximately 93% of all kindergarten children in the United States received measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) immunizations, diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccines, and poliovirus and chickenpox vaccines. reports MPH’s Ranee Seither. His CDC’s National Immunization and Respiratory Disease Center in Atlanta and colleagues.

Overall coverage for these immunizations has fallen by 1 percentage point each year since 2019, and immunizations for all four diseases have declined in most states, Seither and colleagues said. I write like Weekly reports of morbidity and mortality.

“This may sound insignificant, but it means that nearly 250,000 kindergarten children may be unprotected from measles,” said deputy director of CDC’s Division of Immunization Services. said Georgina Peacock, MD, MPH at a press conference. “Measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates are at their lowest levels in more than a decade.”

Just last year, with a community in Minnesota Ohio It experienced a measles epidemic that led to the hospitalization of children.

“These outbreaks were preventable,” Peacock said. “The best way to prevent these diseases and their devastating effects on children is vaccination.”

In New York, for the first time in nearly ten years, A case of paralytic polio in unimmunized individuals.

Sean O’Leary, M.D., chair of the Infectious Diseases Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the decline in vaccination coverage was not due to increased exemptions. Overall, 2.6% of her kindergarten students had vaccine exemptions, and the majority of those exemptions were non-medical. But his 4% of U.S. children who weren’t exempt still hadn’t received the MMR vaccine, the study revealed.

“I think it’s complicated why we’ve seen such a decline,” O’Leary said at a press conference. “Certainly misinformation is a problem and has always been a problem.”

O’Leary added that researchers are trying to understand the extent to which misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine is leading to misinformation about other childhood immunizations, adding that researchers are trying to understand the extent to which misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine is linked to misinformation about other childhood immunizations. He pointed out that misinformation has been circulating for many years.

Peacock noted that the pandemic’s disruption to the health care system and the ability of schools to collect documentation on vaccines may have contributed to the reported decline in childhood immunization rates in recent years.

Seither’s group acknowledged some limitations of their study, noting that state comparisons were limited by differing vaccine requirements. Additionally, they noted that inaccurate or missing documentation from schools during this time may have overestimated or underestimated vaccination and exemption rates.

Another study by Holly Hill, M.D., Ph.D., also at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, found that although vaccination coverage among kindergarten children has declined in recent years, routine childhood immunization remains stable.

Overall, 70% of children born between 2016 and 2019 were up to date on seven vaccine series by age 2, writes Hill’s group. Weekly reports of morbidity and mortality.

Compared with babies born in 2016-2017, babies born in 2018-2019 had higher rates of most routine immunizations. The rates for 1 dose of hepatitis B vaccine, 3 doses of hepatitis B vaccine and 1 dose of varicella vaccine were more than 90% each. Among children born in 2018 to her 2019, vaccination rates were lower if she received at least two doses of influenza (63.9%) and her hepatitis A (47.3%) vaccines. increase.

As far as the proportion of unvaccinated infants is concerned, “that number is really going down,” says O’Leary. “That’s why parents still vaccinate their children. The majority do.”

The percentage of children who were not fully vaccinated was just under 1%, a decrease of about 0.4 percentage points from 2016 to 2017.

Hill and colleagues did not detect a decline in routine infant vaccination coverage associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the youngest child included in this analysis was her 2-year-old. However, while immunization coverage has stabilized in recent years, disparities between children living in rural areas, children from low-income families, uninsured children and uninsured children remain persistent. Some are expanding. in the black or Hispanic population.

For example, vaccination coverage for seven vaccine series fell by 4-5 percent among children living below the federal poverty level or in rural areas, and immunization decreased among children in these two groups during the pandemic. Did.

“It’s these unfortunate disparities that are of particular concern,” said O’Leary, noting that barriers such as lack of transportation, medical services, or paid vacations are preventing some families from getting their children vaccinated. I pointed out that it is a serious challenge to receive.

Hill’s group noted that selection bias may limit the findings due to low household interview response rates. Estimates of vaccination coverage may be overestimated or underestimated if the approved vaccines were not properly documented.