96 percent of state’s kids get their shots
Vaccination rates for California kindergartners rose to their highest levels in more than 15 years, likely due in part to increased public concern after the 2015 measles outbreak as well as a new law that makes it much more difficult for parents to opt out of immunizing their children, state officials said Wednesday.
Nearly 96 percent of children were fully vaccinated when they started kindergarten in the fall, according to a report released by the California Department of Public Health. That’s up from 93 percent in the previous school year and 90 percent in 2014-15.
Childhood vaccinations became a heated topic two years ago amid a measles outbreak that started at Disneyland and infected more than 130 people in California and dozens more in other states and countries. Infectious-disease and
public-health experts warned that vaccination rates had dipped so low that communities around the state were dangerously vulnerable to outbreaks of diseases thought to be nearly eradicated.
The vaccination rate released Wednesday is a positive sign that efforts to increase awareness about the importance of immunization are working, health officials said. But there remain pockets up and down the state where children are under-immunized.
“There is still work to done,” said Dr. James Watt, chief of the division of communicable disease control with the state Public Health Department.
“From a statewide perceptive, we’re above the 95 percent threshold, which is an important marker of the level that you need to prevent disease transmission. But there are still places in the state where we’re below that level.”
In response to the 2015 measles outbreak, state legislators introduced Senate Bill 277, doing away with California’s “personal-belief exemptions,” which allowed parents to choose not to vaccinate their children for any reason. Such exemptions had become increasing popular, peaking at almost 6 percent of all incoming kindergartners in 2013-14. The 201617 school year is the first for which the law took effect.
Medical exemptions, used for children who cannot be vaccinated due to problems with their immune system or other health issues, increased slightly this school year, from 0.2 percent in 201516 to 0.5 percent. Some children who previously had personal-belief exemptions may have been allowed medical exemptions instead, Watt said.
A big reason for the boost in vaccination rates appears to be increased efforts to work with schools and families to ensure that children are fully up to date with the wide array of shots they need to meet state requirements.
Children starting kindergarten are supposed to have at least 13 doses for nine infectious diseases. In years past, roughly 5 percent of kindergartners were “conditional entrants,” meaning they were missing one or more doses but allowed to start school, anyway. This school year, that rate dropped to 2 percent.
“We’ve definitely seen the vaccination numbers go up at Kaiser — not only the school-age kids, but also kids under 2 years of age,” said Dr. Keith Fabisiak, a pediatrician with Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara.
The new state law explains part of increase, Fabisiak said, but Kaiser also initiated a program about four years ago that keeps tabs on children who are falling behind on vaccinations and contacts their parents to get them on track.
“Letting people know why we’re doing the vaccines and what they’re for, why schools are requiring them, that all helps,” Fabisiak said.
Vaccination rates vary widely from county to county, from a high of 98.5 percent in Tulare County to a low of 80.9 percent in Nevada County. In nine counties, less than 90 percent of kindergartners are fully vaccinated.
All nine Bay Area counties had vaccination rates above 90 percent. In Marin County, long known as a center of vaccine resistance among parents, kindergarten immunization rates climbed to 93.2 percent, from a low of 77.9 percent in 2011.
In that year, 15 percent of Marin County children were allowed conditional entrance, and nearly 7 percent had personalbelief exemptions.
This year, 3.1 percent were conditional entrants. Despite the new law, 1.2 percent of Marin children had personal belief exemptions; they were most likely students who were in two-year kindergarten programs and had started in 2015, state public-health officials said.