US threatens epidemics due to increased number of unvaccinated children

Indicators of refusals to vaccinate infants and children of school age are gradually increasing, creating a threatening situation in the US healthcare sector, show new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Фото: Depositphotos

The third academic year in a row the number of unvaccinated children has increased markedly, writes PBS.

Childhood vaccination rates were lower in Oregon than in Venezuela. Only half of preschoolers in the state received the MMR vaccine (combined vaccine measles, mumps and rubella), compared to 57% of Venezuelan children.

Overall, the CDC reported that childhood vaccination rates have been rising steadily since 2001. The agency’s study covers millions of children in 49 states and the District of Columbia (the Wyoming data were not included in the study), taking information from health care providers and schools. The results show that vaccination coverage remains high for children aged 19-35 for months and for visitors to kindergartens.

But the average vaccination failure rate among kindergarten visitors increased from 2% in 2016 to 2,2% in 2017.

Eighteen states allow non-medical exemptions for schoolchildren, allowing parents not to vaccinate their child for personal reasons. In these states, several districts have an unusually high percentage of unvaccinated children, creating vulnerabilities for the spread of certain diseases.

These unimmunized regions pose a threat to disease outbreaks.

That's what you need to know about the situation and how to avoid risks.

Why do vaccination rates vary significantly between states?

Usually, the child must be fully vaccinated to attend school. Children who have missed some vaccinations should be given by the time they reach school age, with the result that immunization rates increase as children grow older. For example, in 2015, more than 90% of boys aged from 19 to 35 received individual DTaP vaccines (diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough) and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), but this number jumped to 94% for kindergarten visitors.

Connecticut has one of the highest rates of vaccination of children in the country. Vaccination of children against poliomyelitis, DTaP, MMR, hepatitis B, chickenpox and hepatitis A among visitors to kindergartens in the state exceed 96%.

Connecticut allows refusals of some vaccinations for religious reasons, as well as if the need is justified by a doctor, but other states are more lenient towards parents who do not want to vaccinate their children.

According to the analysis conducted by Baylor College of Medicine, 12 from 18 states that allow vaccination waivers for personal reasons, the number of unvaccinated kindergarten visitors who do not have medical indications to refuse vaccination has noticeably increased since 2009. In the US, 47 states and the District of Columbia allow for refusals of vaccinations for religious reasons.

The state of Oregon has the highest vaccination failure rates in the country, partly due to the popular anti-vaccination movement in the state. DTaP and MMR vaccines in Oregon received about 93% of children. The vaccination failure rates increased from the 1 percentage in the 2000 year to the 7,6 percentage during the 2016-2017 school year.

However, these failures are very unevenly distributed between state schools. The leader in non-vaccination is The Dome School. The school’s website indicates that only 19% of preschoolers and 20% of children in K-12 had all the necessary vaccinations.

School administrator Susan Gustafson said the school does not have an official vaccination position and allows parents to make their own decisions.

Vaccines save lives according to science

Studies have repeatedly shown that vaccines are safe and prevent some very contagious and dangerous diseases.

The likelihood of a serious adverse health event due to the vaccine is extremely low, even lower than the chance of being killed by lightning.

A child who has not received measles, mumps, rubella vaccine is 35 times more likely to get measles than a vaccinated child in the US, and 90% of unvaccinated people who come into contact with infected people will get sick. Two doses of the MMR vaccine give 97% efficacy in preventing measles.

An increase in the number of vaccination refusals threatens not only unvaccinated people. Mumps can infect vaccinated people, as noted by the massive outbreak in 2006, which infected more 6500 people in the Midwest, despite high vaccination rates. These unimmunized regions threaten America, but they are also a worldwide problem.

Non-immunized regions are a major global issue.

Many governments around the world are campaigning to catch up with Cuba's MMR vaccination rates - the island has maintained a 99% uptake rate for these shots for years. Massachusetts is closest to this figure at 98,3 percent.

Babies in Colorado have the same MMR vaccine rates as children in Belize and Denmark (88 percent), while children in New Jersey have hepatitis B vaccination rates lower than in the Dominican Republic (60 percent in New Jersey vs. 67 percent in the Dominican Republic).

The overall level of vaccination in the world is 85%, but there are three types of communities where there is a high level of unvaccinated children. These include areas that are far from health facilities, illegally created urban slums that do not have medical services, as well as war zones or zones of conflict.

How can the US reduce unvaccinated regions

States that have adopted legal restrictions on vaccination refusals have shown a rapid increase in the number of vaccinations.

After an outbreak of measles in 2014-2015 in Disneyland, when at least 147 people got infected, California passed a vaccination law requiring children in kindergarten and seventh grade to have all the vaccinations needed for this age.

The following year, the number of visitors to kindergartens vaccinated increased by three percentage points, while non-medical vaccination refusals dropped to their lowest level in a decade.

The same thing happened in West Virginia. In 2015, the state government introduced a bill to the Senate, according to which children enrolled in institutions and public schools should be fully vaccinated.

West Virginia now boasts some of the highest vaccination rates in the country.

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