Number of Children Missing Critical Vaccines Continues to Rise

News of the first flu-related pediatric death this season in an unvaccinated child in Florida comes just days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the percentage of U.S. children who received no recommended vaccinations for infectious diseases continues to rise.

According to the Florida Department of Health, the influenza-associated death was reported during the week ended October 6, 2018. The unvaccinated child had no known underlying medical condition.

The CDC recommends routine annual influenza vaccination for all persons ages 6 months and older who do not have contraindications.

Meanwhile, two CDC reports dated October 12, 2018, found an increase in the number of children who were missing some or all vaccinations for potentially serious illnesses among kindergartners as well as kids between 19 and 35 months of age.

100,000 Unprotected Children

Based on information from the 2017 National Immunization Survey (NIS), the percentage of 19- to 35-month-olds who had not received any of the recommended vaccines for childhood infectious diseases such as measles, mumps, and chickenpox rose to 1.3 percent last year, compared with 0.3 percent in a CDC survey conducted in 2001 — a quadruple jump.

“This increase means that there are about 100,000 children under 2 years old that are not protected against potentially serious vaccine preventable diseases,” CDC spokesman Ian Branam tells Everyday Health.

Though gradual, the trend is very concerning to child-health experts. “When kids don’t get vaccinated, serious preventable diseases return, and it becomes a public health issue,” says Kenneth Hempstead, MD, FAAP, a pediatrician at Kaiser Permanente in Roseville, California.

“We’ve seen this happen with whooping cough (pertussis) and measles,” says Dr. Hempstead. “When these diseases return, they can be serious, even deadly, for those who get sick, and they can spread to vulnerable populations, such as infants, who can’t get vaccinated [yet].”

On the positive side, vaccination rates among kindergartners for measles, mumps, and rubella (the MMR vaccine); diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (DTaP); and chickenpox (varicella) were all above 93 percent, which the report called “high and stable.”

Exemptions and Vaccine-Hesitant Parents

However, the median exemption rate — permission to forgo vaccines for religious or philosophical reasons — increased for the third year in a row, to 2.2 percent.

“If we meet a patient whose parents are vaccine-hesitant, we usually start by asking permission to talk about vaccines,” says Susan Wootton, MD, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor of pediatrics at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston.

“The first step is establishing a respectful relationship and trust. Over the following days, we work to answer specific questions about vaccines, identify useful resources for the family, and provide handouts,” says Dr. Wootton. “We’re often able to at least get families to consider [vaccination] and to start a conversation about [the] issue.”

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, all 50 states allow medical exemptions for children with a known medical risk for a vaccine. Almost all states offer an exemption for people whose religious beliefs don’t allow vaccinations, and 18 states allow philosophical exemptions.

Potential Barriers to Vaccination

The CDC’s Branam says the agency’s data suggests that “many of these parents do want to vaccinate their children, but they may not be able to get vaccines for them.” Barriers to vaccination may include:

Access to nearby health professionals

Having the time to get their child to a doctor

Concern about the cost of vaccines

Options to Ensure Childhood Vaccination

If cost is an issue, vaccination options are available for eligible families.

The federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) program provides vaccines free of charge for children ages 18 years and younger, who are uninsured, underinsured, Medicaid-eligible, or American Indian or Alaska Native. While the vaccines are provided free of charge, there may be an administrative fee of about $15.

Providers in the VFC program include private physicians and clinics. Click here for a list of VFC coordinators in every state who can direct you to local providers.

If taking off time from work poses a problem, urgent care clinics frequently offer evening and weekend hours. The online HealthMap Vaccine Finder can help you locate clinics, pharmacies, and health departments near you that offer vaccination services.

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