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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly a quarter of a million preschool children are potentially vulnerable to measles because of a drop in vaccination coverage during the pandemic.
The CDC found in a report released Thursday that 93% of kindergartners were up to date on state-required vaccines in the 2021-2022 school year, a 2% decline from 2019-2020.
“Although this may not sound important, it means that almost 250,000 children in kindergartens are potentially not protected from measles,” said Dr. Georgina Peacock, chief of CDC’s Division of Immunization Services.
“And we know that measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations for preschool children are the lowest they’ve been in a decade,” Peacock said.
Vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella, chicken pox, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough are mandatory for children in kindergarten. The vaccination rate against measles, mumps and rubella was 93.5% in the 2021-2022 school year, which is below the target coverage of 95% to prevent outbreaks.
The current measles outbreak in Columbus, Ohio has spread to 83 children, 33 of whom have been hospitalized. None of the children died. The vast majority of children, 78, were not vaccinated.
“These outbreaks harm children and cause significant disruption to their opportunities to learn, grow and succeed,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Infectious Diseases Committee. “This is alarming and should be a call to action for all of us.”
The CDC report looked at whether children in kindergarten received a second dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Two doses are 97 percent effective in preventing the disease, and one dose is about 93 percent effective, according to the CDC.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads through coughing or sneezing and contaminates the air, where the virus can linger for up to two hours. It can also be spread when a person touches a contaminated surface and then touches their eyes, nose or mouth.
The virus is so contagious that a single person can spread the virus to 90% of people close to them who lack immunity from vaccination or previous infection, according to the CDC.
Measles can be dangerous for children under 5, adults over 20, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.
About one in five unvaccinated people who get it are hospitalized. About one in 20 children develop pneumonia, and one in 1,000 have brain swelling that can cause disability. Symptoms begin with a high fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes. Two to three days later, white spots appear in the mouth, and a rash appears on the body.
CDC officials said disruptions to schools and the health care system during the Covid pandemic are largely responsible for the drop in vaccination rates.
“We know that the pandemic has really caused disruptions to health care systems, part of which is that well-child visits may have been missed and people are still trying to make up for those well-child visits,” Peacock said.
“We know that schools have had a lot of things to focus on and in some cases they may not have been able to collect all of that vaccination documentation,” Peacock said. “Or because the kids were at home a lot of the time of the pandemic, maybe that wasn’t a focus while they were focused on testing and doing all those other things related to the pandemic.”
In a separate report released Thursday, the CDC found that coverage of the so-called seven-vaccine combination actually increased slightly among children born in 2018-2019 when they turned two, compared with children born in 2016 -2017.
This series of seven vaccines includes vaccinations against measles, chicken pox, polio, hepatitis B, streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae or Hib, as well as diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.
However, the CDC found that there are large income and racial disparities. Vaccination has fallen by up to 5% during the pandemic for those living below the poverty line or in rural areas. Black and Hispanic children had lower vaccination rates than white children.
O’Leary said that while misinformation about vaccines is a problem, the vast majority of parents still get their children vaccinated. He said inequality is a bigger problem.
“The things we really need to focus on are addressing access and child poverty,” O’Leary said.
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