Childhood immunizations in the US fell for the second year in a row, leaving hundreds of thousands of children vulnerable to otherwise preventable diseases.
On Thursday, the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 93% of children entering kindergarten during the 2021-22 school year were fully vaccinated.
That’s a 1 percentage point drop from the previous school year, when 94% of children had received all of their immunizations. forced to attend public school and meant to protect them from a variety of diseases, including measles, polio, tetanus, and chickenpox.
Before the pandemic, in the fall of 2019, 95% of kindergarten children were fully vaccinated.
The CDC report comes several weeks after a KFF survey (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation) reported that 28% of adults were against immunization requirements for children entering kindergarten, up from 16% in 2019.
The downward trend in vaccine coverage «is alarming,» Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatrician and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, said Thursday during a CDC-led news conference. .
Missed doctor appointments during the Covid pandemic certainly played a role in missed routine vaccinations. But fears stoked by misinformation about vaccines have also been a growing problem, O’Leary said.
“We are still trying to understand the extent to which misinformation about Covid vaccines has spilled over into misinformation about other childhood vaccines,” he said.
Dr. Georgina Peacock, director of the CDC’s Division of Immunization Services, said during the briefing that misinformation is something the agency is watching closely.
In a December interview, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said that misinformation about vaccines is one of the biggest threats to public health.
Declining vaccination rates against measles, mumps, and rubella, given together in the MMR vaccine, contributed to the decline in coverage. The CDC said the drop meant nearly a quarter of a million kindergartners were left defenseless against the world’s most contagious virus: measles.
«Measles, mumps and rubella vaccination coverage for kindergarten children is the lowest in more than a decade,» Peacock said.
A measles outbreak in Ohio that began in November is still spreading, almost entirely among unvaccinated young children.
Starting Thursday, Public Health of Columbus has reported 83 cases, with 33 hospitalized children. Sixty-six percent of the patients are 5 years old or younger, and at least 78 of the 83 children have never received the MMR vaccine.
«These outbreaks harm children and have caused significant disruptions in their opportunities to learn, grow and thrive,» O’Leary said.
Vaccination for Covid also remains low among children. Among children 6 months to 4 years old, 11% have received at least one dose of the covid vaccine, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
About a third of children ages 5 to 11 have received two doses of a covid vaccine.
A second CDC report published Thursday found a slight increase in routine vaccinations among infants and young children. About 70% of children born in 2018 and 2019 are up to date on recommended vaccinations, the CDC said.
