Results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Immunization Survey show that many toddlers across the state aren’t getting vaccinated for certain diseases on time, if at all.
The trend means more children are at risk of getting whooping cough, measles or other preventable diseases.
The annual survey reports that children between 19 and 35 months of age weren’t any more protected against potentially fatal and serious diseases than the year before. Approximately 67 percent of toddlers in 2014 were fully vaccinated by 3 years of age. The overall rate is about 3 percent lower than 2013, but statistically the two rates are not significantly different.
The immunization rates for Washington for 2014 did not improve for most recommended vaccines for young children. The lone exception was the dose of hepatitis B vaccine given at birth.
Coverage rates for the hepatitis B birth dose vaccine exceeded national coverage rates, rising to almost 80 percent.
“The data show that we’re not protecting all of our kids as well as we should,” Kathy Lofy, state health officer, said in a press release.
Lofy said the recent spike in measles cases and the ongoing whooping cough outbreak highlights the need for high vaccination rates. Measles vaccination rates aren’t high enough to provide community protection, stated the press release. So far in 2015, there were 11 cases of measles reported in Washington. This spring, a Clallam County woman was the first measles-related death in the nation in over a decade.
The state and national goal is that 90 percent of children will each receive individual childhood vaccines, and 80 percent of children will have the complete series on time.
Lofy said when communities have less than 90 percent of people vaccinated, highly contagious disease like measles spread quickly and easier.
Washington provides all recommended vaccines at no cost for kids through age 18. Vaccines are available from health care providers across the state and an office visit fee or administration fee for the vaccine can be waived if the family cannot afford it.
