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While vaccination rates among young children in the United States remain high, the percentage of people who have not received the recommended vaccines has increased, as do vaccine-free rates, the CDC says. .
In a recent report, the CDC found that the percentage of 2-year-olds who received no vaccine increased by 1.3% among children born in 2015, compared to 0.9% among those born in 2011. By the way, the median rate of kindergarten Children enjoying a vaccination exemption also increased – for the third year in a row – to reach 2.2%, said the CDC in another study.
"Continuous assessment of the prevalence and reasons for non-vaccination is needed, as well as improvements in the access and supply of vaccines to all children," wrote the researchers in the first report, which focuses on children from 19 to 35 months.
The researchers found clues from the data collected. Young children in this age group living outside metropolitan areas had vaccination rates that were 2.6 to 6.9 percentage points lower for various vaccines than their urban peers. The percentage of children who received no vaccine was also higher in rural areas.
Uninsured children and those covered by Medicaid were less likely to be vaccinated, even though they were eligible to receive free vaccines under the National Vaccines for Children (VFC) program. The researchers cited "the lack of knowledge of the VFC program and how to access it, transportation, child care and the convenience of consultation hours", among the reasons for this disparity.
In 2014, a measles outbreak in Disneyland, California, highlighted the low rate of childhood immunization against this disease. Still, in 11 states, less than 90 percent of children aged 19 to 35 months had received at least one dose of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in 2017, the CDC said.
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In Colorado, Idaho, Kansas and British Columbia, in 49 states and the District of Columbia during the 2017-2018 school year, the median rates of completion of MMR at two doses are lower at 90%. D.C. landed at the bottom with only 81.3%. The country's capital also recorded the lowest rates for DTaP and chickenpox, while the "median maternal vaccination coverage was nearly 95%" for all three vaccines, the CDC said.
However, what is of greatest concern to researchers is the percentage of children receiving a vaccination exemption. For the third year in a row, this rate increased slightly to 2.2%. Only 0.2% benefited from exemptions for medical reasons. Although the CDC scientists could not determine the reason for this increase, they suspected "the ease of the procedure for obtaining exemptions or parental reluctance to vaccination" may have played a role.
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In a report published in June in the journal PLOS Medicine, even some of the country's largest metropolitan areas were identified as non-medical "hot spots" of exemption. These include Seattle, Washington; Phoenix, Arizona; Houston and Austin, Texas; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, among others.
"Given the effectiveness of the closure of the exemption policy, the evidence suggests that other states should consider ending [nonmedical exemption] and protect schoolchildren from vaccine-preventable diseases, "wrote the authors of the study.
Scientists and health officials have warned that the increasing activity of anti-vaccines or the hesitation of parents would make children – and potentially a wider population – vulnerable to certain preventable diseases. A study conducted in 2017 and based on Twitter data from 2009 to 2015 found that anti-vaccine messages were already being replicated in affluent areas such as New York and California and in cities with large numbers of new mothers.
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