U.S.
vaccination rates high, but pockets of unvaccinated pose
risk
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[August 28, 2015]
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The vast majority of
U.S. kindergarten-age children are vaccinated against preventable
diseases but sizable pockets of unprotected children still exist, posing
a public health threat, according to a government study.
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Only 1.7 percent of U.S. parents of kindergartners sought exemptions
in 2014 from laws requiring children be vaccinated, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.
Rates vary nationwide, however, with at least one state reporting
over 6 percent of parents seeking exemptions, the study released
Thursday found.
"Pockets of children who miss vaccinations exist in our communities
and they leave these communities vulnerable to outbreaks of
vaccine-preventable diseases," Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the
CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases,
told reporters in a media briefing.
Lawmakers in at least 10 states including California are making
efforts to tighten school vaccination exemption rules after a
measles outbreak at Disneyland in Anaheim sickened more than 100
people earlier this year.
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All states require a schedule of vaccines that a child must have
before he or she can be enrolled in school. Every state allows
exemptions from vaccines for medical reasons, and all but
Mississippi and West Virginia allow exemptions for religious
reasons.
Because U.S. measles vaccination rates are high, at 94 percent among
kindergarten-age children, the Disney outbreak was less of a problem
than in Canada, Schuchat said.
"We were lucky in the U.S. We didn't see large outbreaks in
schools," she said, adding that in one province in Canada, there
were more than 100 measles cases from the Disney exposure "because
of a big pocket of undervaccinated people."
High vaccination rates provide herd immunity, preventing the spread
of a virus to individuals too young or too sick to be vaccinated.
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According to the report, which included data on 45 states that met
reporting requirements and the District of Columbia, the median rate
of kindergartners with any exemption was less than 1 percent in six
states and greater than 4 percent in 11 states.
Mississippi reported the lowest rates of vaccine exemptions with a
median of 0.1 percent, while Idaho reported the highest at 6.5
percent.
Schuchat said she was encouraged that states increasingly are making
vaccination coverage information available to residents online, with
as many as 21 states doing so in the current reporting period.
Parents can use that data to check on vaccination coverage in their
own communities and schools, depending on how the state reports the
data, she said.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Andrew Hay)
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