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Chickenpox has settled in a school in North Carolina, where many families claim a religious exemption from the vaccine.
Cases of chickenpox are increasing at the Asheville Waldorf School, which welcomes children from kindergarten to grade six in Asheville, North Carolina. A dozen infections rose to 28 at the beginning of the month. On Friday, there were 36, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.
The epidemic is among the worst in the state since the chickenpox vaccine has been available for more than 20 years. Since then, two-dose treatment has been successful in limiting the highly contagious disease that once affected 90% of Americans.
The school is a symbol of the small but powerful movement against the most effective means of preventing the spread of infectious diseases – as an island in the vast ocean of medical consensus. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of children under 2 years of age who have received no vaccine has quadrupled since 2001.
Like the Disneyland measles outbreak in 2015, this outbreak illustrates the real consequences of an obscure debate fueled by the science of junk food and fomented by the same type of robots and trolls on Twitter who spread misinformation during the 2016 presidential election. And that shows how an apparently marginal view can gain ground in a place like Asheville, a year-round trendy seaside resort nestled between Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains.
"The school follows the vaccination requirements put in place by the state's education council, but also acknowledges that a parent's decision to immunize his children intervenes. before they enter school, "explained the school in a statement on public radio Blue Ridge.
Jennifer Mullendore, Medical Director of Buncombe County, North Carolina, said unambiguously, "We want to be clear: vaccination is the best protection against chickenpox."
"When we see a high number of unvaccinated children and adults, we know that a disease like chicken pox can be passed easily throughout the community – in our playgrounds, our grocery stores and our sports teams, "she said in a press release.
But not all parents seemed to understand the seriousness of the epidemic. Not everyone sees the reason for being vaccines, which some believe – unlike scientific evidence – cause more serious health problems than they are supposed to cure. The assertion of a risk of autism, even though it was discredited, remained a rallying cry of the anti-vaccine movement.
"What's the problem with chicken pox?" Amy Gordon, a city dweller, told the Citizen-Times.
Chickenpox is serious, warns the CDC, "even life threatening, especially in babies, adolescents, adults, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems."
In the United States, the virus appeared every year in about 4 million cases, causing more than 10,000 hospitalizations and between 100 and 150 deaths. Children were particularly susceptible because schools seemed to incubate the blister-like rash, which first appears on the stomach, back and face and can spread all over the body surface , creating up to 500 itchy blisters.
This was before a two-dose vaccination program was authorized in the United States in 1995.
The vaccine, which according to the CDC is about 90% effective, has not eliminated the varicella zoster virus that causes chicken pox. But since the treatment is commercially available, it has reduced the number of cases as well as their severity. A 14-year prospective study published in Pediatrics in 2013 found that the incidence of infection was nine to 10 times lower than that of the pre-vaccine era.
Nevertheless, the clearly documented merits of the vaccine remain unconvincing for some. Asheville Waldorf has one of the highest rates of religious immunization exemption in the state, according to data maintained by the state's Department of Health and Human Services.
The private school has a higher exemption rate for religious reasons than all other schools in North Carolina except two, reported the Citizen-Times. During the 2017-2018 school year, 19 of the 28 kindergarten children were exempted from at least one vaccine required by the state. Of the 152 students in the school, 110 had not yet received the chickenpox vaccine, the newspaper reported.
North Carolina requires that all students in this state receive certain immunizations. Of the vaccines needed for kindergarten children, there are two doses for chickenpox, two for measles and two for mumps. Grade 7 students must again undergo vaccination.
But the state also allows exemptions on the advice of a doctor – as well as for religious reasons.
"If the true religious beliefs of an adult, a parent, a guardian or a person in loco parentis of a child are contrary to the vaccination requirements set forth in this part, this adult or this child will be exempted from the obligation ", according to the law in force. .
Recent efforts to tighten the rules have failed. In 2015, state legislators withdrew a bill that would have virtually eliminated the religious exemption after their efforts were violently protested. The protesters demonstrated in front of the State General Assembly in Raleigh, warning against "medical terrorism".
Meanwhile, the county medical director urged residents to vaccinate their children. "What happens when we run out of community immunity? Measles is what happens," said Mullendore this fall to the county commissioners, who was posting the rate. religious exemptions the highest of last year.
Frictions between medical experts and residents in care are not unique to Buncombe County, where parents of 5.7% of kindergarten children applied for religious exemption, or even to North Carolina, where this rate was 1.2%.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, forty-seven states allow religious exemptions for immunization. Data from the CDC show that the median percentage of kindergarten children who did not receive one or more required vaccinations was highest in Oregon.
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