According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 / 4 of one million preschoolers are at risk of measles due to a decline in vaccination rates through the pandemic.
The CDC, in a report released Thursday, said 93% of preschoolers were up-to-date on state-mandated vaccines within the 2021-22 school 12 months, down 2% from 2019-20.
“While this will likely not seem significant, it means that just about 250,000 preschoolers are potentially unprotected from measles,” Dr. Georgina Peacock, head of the CDC’s immunization division, told reporters Thursday.
“We all know that measles, mumps, and rubella immunization rates for preschoolers are at their lowest in greater than a decade,” Peacock said.
Preschoolers are required to be vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella; Chickenpox; polio; and diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination rate was 93.5% for the 2021-22 school 12 months, below the 95% goal to prevent outbreaks.
An ongoing measles outbreak in Columbus, Ohio, has spread to 83 children, 33 of whom have been hospitalized. None of the youngsters died. The overwhelming majority of kids aged 78 haven’t been vaccinated.
“These outbreaks are harming children and causing significant disruption to their ability to learn, grow and thrive,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics’ infectious disease committee. “That is worrying and needs to be a call to motion for all of us.”
The CDC report looked at whether preschoolers received a second dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. According to the CDC, two doses are 97% effective in stopping disease, and one dose is about 93% effective.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that’s spread when someone coughs or sneezes and pollutes the air where the virus can persist for up to two hours. It could possibly also spread when an individual touches a contaminated surface after which touches their eyes, nose, or mouth.
According to the CDC, the virus is so contagious that one person can spread the virus to 90% of those close to them who would not have immunity through vaccination or previous infection.
Measles could be dangerous for youngsters under 5, adults over 20, pregnant women and folks with weakened immune systems.
About 1 in 5 unvaccinated individuals who catch it are hospitalized. About 1 in 20 children get pneumonia and one in 1,000 has brain swelling that may cause disability. Symptoms start with high fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes. White patches appear within the mouth two to three days later, and a rash appears on the body.
CDC officials said disruptions to schools and the health care system through the Covid pandemic are largely liable for the decline in vaccination rates.
“We all know that the pandemic has really disrupted health systems,” Peacock said. “A part of that is that visits from healthy children can have been missed, and folks are still trying to atone for those visits.”
“We all know that schools had quite a lot of things to deal with and in some cases they could not have been able to collect all vaccination records,” Peacock said. “Or because the youngsters were at home for many of the pandemic, possibly there was no emphasis on it while they were focused on testing and doing all the opposite things related to the pandemic.”
In a separate report published Thursday, the CDC said that the coverage of the so-called combined series of seven vaccines actually increased barely amongst children born in 2018-19 by the point they turned two, compared with children born in 2016-17.
This series of seven vaccines includes injections against measles, chickenpox, polio, hepatitis B, streptococcal pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae or Hib, and diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.
Nevertheless, the CDC said there have been large differences in income and race. Vaccination coverage fell by up to 5% through the pandemic amongst people 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 an issue, the overwhelming majority of fogeys still vaccinate their children. He said inequality is a much bigger problem.
“The things we really want to deal with is tackling access and child poverty,” O’Leary said.