[ad_1]
According to data from the New Jersey Department of Health, about 13,000 children in New Jersey have forgotten vaccines that could protect them from childhood diseases.
Vaccination of children is increasingly being studied in recent weeks, while measles epidemics, a disease long absent from society, are becoming more common. The number of children diagnosed with the disease in Monmouth and Ocean counties climbed to 11 this week, according to health officials.
But many more schools are likely to become the next place where children contract preventable diseases.
At least 490 schools in New Jersey have vaccination rates below the level required to protect unvaccinated children who attend them. Within these, a few dozen schools have very low compliance rates, making them potential foci of infection if measles outbreaks continue.
Lawyers say the reason is the low but increasing frequency of anti-vaccine beliefs in some local communities. "Like measles itself, the movement begins its own life," said Michael Weinstein, director of the New Jersey Immunization Network, which informs the public about vaccine safety.
Researchers worry that the vaccination rate falls below the herd immunity threshold, where vaccinated children are so common and unvaccinated children so little that it is difficult for a disease to spread among unvaccinated children.
"If most people are pro-vaccine and an anti-vaccine person, the child's exposure is pretty low," said Rupali Limaye, associate director of the Institute for Safety and Security. vaccines from Johns Hopkins University.
At the state level, 95% of children meet all the requirements for vaccination, which is above the limit required by most diseases to qualify for collective immunity. At the county level, Warren County is the lowest with 92.7% of vaccine needs.
Parents may request different exemptions to avoid meeting these requirements. The number of parents requesting medical exemption – for conditions that make the child's immune system too poor to handle vaccines – was about the same in 2017-2018 as in previous years. The number of religious exemptions, by contrast, increased from 1.7% to 2.4% at the state level and even increased in some schools.
"Cases in which families use the philosophical approach but get a religious exemption are hard to pin down," Weinstein said.
Puthenmadam Radhakrishnan, pediatrician working in Ewing and Trenton, said access to vaccines was another problem for low-income families. The state provides Medicaid to children, but all providers do not accept it, he said.
He saw the results of a bad vaccination during the influenza season. "It starts slowly, then suddenly, 20 to 30% of the school is closed," said Radhakrishnan, who also works with NJIN through his partner, the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Last year, the state legislature considered eliminating the religious exemption, but had to deal with hostile reactions from religious and anti-vaccine groups. The parents claimed that it took away their freedom to choose their children.
But Limaye pointed out that many anti-vaccine parents base their decisions on misinformation about the dangers of vaccines. They overestimate the number of chemicals in the ingredients, overestimate the frequency of adverse reactions, and overestimate the time it takes their child to protect vaccines at the time of schooling.
"We need to focus on people who have concerns and not ignore them," she said. "We must use accessible means to talk about science."
Dr. Radhakrishnan urged parents struggling to vaccinate their children to turn to free or low-cost programs such as Vaccines for Children. He said outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are "the worst thing we see. That's what pediatricians try to provide.
The state has provided school-level vaccination data in response to a registration request. However, parents need to know certain things before taking a look. These numbers are self-reported by schools and are not verified by the state. We have eliminated the schools for which the number has not increased, but we can not guarantee that these schools are accurate either.
Erin Petenko can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @EPetenko. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
[ad_2]
Source link