Vaccination coverage required for kindergarten children falls for second year in a row

CNN
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Measles and other disease immunization rates dropped again last school year. the study It was announced Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Coverage for measles is the lowest in more than a decade.

School requirements do not include Covid-19 vaccines, although at least 20 states have explicitly banned their inclusion in school orders. become part of the CDC’s recommended vaccination schedule against

Approximately 93% of kindergarten children enrolled in the 2021-22 school year received the necessary vaccines, including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis (DTaP); and polio. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, coverage has fallen for his second year in a row, down from about 94% the year before and below his federal target of 95%.

“As schools return to in-person learning, high immunization rates are critical to keeping children and communities safe from vaccine-preventable diseases,” CDC researchers wrote in the study. Clusters of unvaccinated children could lead to outbreaks, and at around 93.5% vaccination coverage, about 250,000 kindergarten children may be unprotected from measles.

High vaccination rates among children also help protect the wider community, said Sean O’Leary, PhD, chair of the Infectious Diseases Board of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“It’s important to re-emphasize that this affects everyone in these communities. High vaccination rates help everyone stay healthy,” he said Thursday.

Ohio is one of nine states with less than 90% of kindergarteners vaccinated against measles last year. An outbreak in the Columbus area that began in November resulted in 83 cases among children, the majority of whom had not been vaccinated.

“Such epidemics are completely preventable. These outbreaks harm children and cause significant disruption to their opportunities to learn, grow and thrive,” said O’Leary, referring to a recent report in New York. A case of polio was also cited.

“Vaccination from childhood is essential because it equips a child’s immune system to recognize and fight disease, enabling him to lead a healthy adult life. Healthy childhood. leads to healthy adulthood.”

In-person learning is back in schools across the country, but Covid-19 continues to disrupt vaccination assessment and coverage, according to the report. About half of the states cite reduced access to immunization appointments, extended enforcement timelines, and delayed data collection.

Recent Research Another survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than a third of parents oppose making vaccines mandatory in schools, even though the choice may pose health risks for individuals. I understand.

Experts say they are paying close attention to increased hesitancy to vaccines during the pandemic, but declining vaccination coverage among kindergarten children may be more complex than just one factor. there is.

“I think part of that is probably because children’s visits are missed and people are still trying to catch up with their children’s visits. We know there are a lot of things and that in some cases we may not have collected all the vaccination documentation,” says Dr Georgina Peacock. The director of the CDC’s vaccination service Sivision said Thursday.

“It may have been under-emphasized while we were focused on testing and implementing everything else related to the pandemic to ensure our children had the education they needed. ”

According to the CDC, less than 3% of kindergarteners were officially exempt from required immunizations, mostly for non-medical reasons. Although it increased slightly from the previous year, it remained at a low level.

Another 4% of kindergarten children were not fully immunized or formally exempt but were allowed to attend school during the provisional enrollment grace period. According to CDC researchers, this group of students is subject to “rigorously enforced school vaccination requirements, school-based vaccination clinics, reminder and recall systems, and inadequate vaccinations by school nurses. It particularly emphasizes the importance of “follow-up of successful students”. If all of these kindergarteners received the required immunizations, most states could reach her 95% coverage against measles.

A recent CNN analysis of data for the 2020-21 school year found that students in states with stricter school vaccination requirements were more likely to be vaccinated.

Apart from school requirements, the CDC recommends routine immunizations for 14 diseases for children before the age of two. another study Vaccination rates among children born in 2018 and 2019 who turned two years old during the Covid-19 pandemic “have remained high and stable for most vaccines,” according to a paper released by the CDC on Thursday. understood. Her less than 1% of these children were completely unvaccinated by the time they were 2 years old. This is better than the federal goals outlined in the Healthy People 2030 Goal.

The Covid-19 pandemic does not appear to have affected overall vaccination coverage. For most vaccines, coverage for children born in 2018 and her 2019 was slightly higher than for children born two years earlier.

However, important differences were noted. Vaccine coverage for children living in areas below the federal poverty level and in rural areas has declined, and he has seen a 4-5% drop in coverage across the seven vaccine series combined.

According to CDC researchers, important ways to improve equity in immunization coverage include addressing parental vaccine hesitation, strong and sustained recommendations from health care providers, and This includes reducing logistical and financial barriers to access.