Chickenpox Epidemic Strikes Private School With Low Vaccination Rate: NPR

The sudden outbreak of chicken pox at the North Carolina private school is not really surprising.

At least 36 students were infected with the disease at the Asheville Waldorf School of Asheville City – a school that counts among the highest rates of parents having benefited from an exemption from the requirements of vaccination of the state.

For the 2017-2018 school year, nearly 68% of the 28 kindergarten students in Asheville Waldorf have benefited from a valid vaccination exemption during their religion. Buncombe County, in the mountains of western North Carolina, where Asheville is located, had the highest percentage of religious exemptions in the state – 5.7% of its total population. 2,542 preschool children received one.

Chickenpox, better known as chicken pox, causes blister-like rashes, itching, fever and fatigue. Although it does not usually act as a serious illness, it can be more dangerous for infants, adults, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems. And it's very contagious.

The varicella vaccine was first licensed in the United States in 1995. The CDC recommends that children receive a first dose of the vaccine between 12 and 15 months of age and a second dose between four and six years of age.

But misinformation has led many parents to avoid vaccinating their children. The misconception that there is a link between vaccines and autism has been particularly difficult to override for public health officials. (See the CDC page entitled "Vaccines Do not Cause Autism".)

North Carolina requires all children in this state to be vaccinated, including two doses of varicella vaccine. But this allows for a religious exemption, which only requires a parent to "write a statement of his religious objection to vaccination." It does not need to be notarized or signed by a religious leader.

The state says that there can be no exception to the immunization requirements "in the case of a personal belief or philosophy of a parent or family." 39, a guardian not based on religious conviction ".

But Jennifer Mullendore, medical director of Buncombe County's Department of Health and Human Services, said that for many parents who invoked the religious exemption, "it's more of a belief." personal or philosophical mistrust "that fuels aversion to the immunization of their children. the Asheville Citizen Times.

The rate of unvaccinated children in Buncombe County is so high that the county created a coalition earlier this year to try to solve the problem – but even Mullendore is not sure what will be effective to convince parents to vaccinate. She noted that parents who chose not to vaccinate tended to be educated and well-off – and that, thanks to the success of vaccines, many parents had never faced an epidemic and were not taking the threat. seriously.

"What happens when we run out of community immunity? Measles is what happens," Mullendore told county commissioners last month.

That's exactly what happened three years ago, when 125 cases of measles broke out, linked to visitors to Disneyland and another Californian theme park.

Europe is currently experiencing a measles epidemic in Romania, France, Greece and Italy. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, at least 33 people have died from measles this year and immunization coverage is now below 95% in most countries.

This is worrying because to protect against a highly contagious disease such as measles, which can be transmitted from one person to another through the air, health experts claim that a community needs an immunity rate of 93% to 95%.

Health officials said that in Rockland County, NY, a current outbreak has resulted in dozens of measles cases, many of them in Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish communities. A number of yeshivas in the region have vaccination rates between 44% and 80%, Rockland / Westchester News Journal reports. Measles cases have also been confirmed in New York and New Jersey.

Some of these cases have been linked to people from Israel, who is also experiencing a measles outbreak, with more than 1,500 confirmed cases. News newspaper reports.

Back in North Carolina, the Asheville Waldorf School said in a statement on public radio Blue Ridge that "the overall health of its students is still a priority and a concern."

"The school meets the immunization requirements put in place by the state education council of North Carolina," he said. "We also recognize that parents' decision to immunize their children comes in before they enter school." At Asheville Waldorf School, we support our families, we love our students, our city and we We are grateful that our community is strong in these difficult times. "