More U.S. Children Vaccinated Than Ever

More U.S. Children Vaccinated Than Ever - Re****t

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WA****NGTON (Reuters) - More U.S. children are being vaccinated than ever 
before but holes remain that put babies and small children at risk of 
deadly disease, according to a survey released on Thursday.

Southwestern and northwestern states have the worst record on 
vaccinating kids, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
(news - web sites) survey found.

One problem is that parents have trouble keeping track of all the 
vaccines their children need, but a small movement of parents who 
question the value of vaccines is also having an impact, experts have
found.

Unvaccinated children are vulnerable to disease and can serve as 
"reservoirs" for continued outbreaks.

While schools require children to be fully vaccinated for enrollment, 
states allow parents to opt out for religious reasons and, increasingly, 
because of "philosophical" opposition.

New combined vaccines should help make it easier to get babies all their 
shots, Dr. Walter Orenstein, the CDC's head of vaccinations, told a news 
conference.

Reminder programs will also help -- with medical records, for instance, 
flagging nurses or doctors that a child being seen for an ear infection 
also needs a booster shot.

The survey of parents of 21,000 U.S. children found that overall, 75 
percent got their full quota of vaccines against eight deadly childhood 
diseases -- diphtheria, measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio (news - 
web sites), rubella or German measles, tetanus and diseases caused by 
Hemophilus influenza bacteria.

This compares to 73.7 percent in 2001 and levels below 70 percent in the 
1960s.

"However, levels in certain states and urban areas, with rates as low as 
57 percent in some major cities, and public misperceptions about the 
need for vaccines, put communities at risk for the spread of 
health-threatening infectious diseases," Orenstein said.

The CDC survey found that more than 86 percent of children in 
Massachusetts got the full schedule of recommended vaccines by age 3, 
but only 62.7 percent in Colorado did. Newark, New Jersey, had the 
lowest vaccination rate, with just 57 percent of children under age 3 
there having received the full schedule.

More than 80 percent now get vaccinated against chickenpox, and more 
than 40 percent get all three recommended doses of the newest vaccine, 
the pneumococcal vaccine protecting against a major cause of meningitis, 
pneumonia and ear infections.

"One dollar invested in the immunization of children saves $6.30," 
Orenstein said. If a parent's lost productivity is considered, the 
savings add up to $18.40. "Each year immunization prevents about 10.5 
million cases of disease and 33,000 deaths," Orenstein said.

To find out why many children go unvaccinated, the National Partner****p 
for Immunization, a non-profit group, looked at a national database 
containing information from three different surveys of 6,000 U.S. adults.

It found that 15 percent of adults do not realize that vaccines are 
necessary to prevent certain diseases. They often felt the body can 
fight off disease on its own and believed unvaccinated children should 
be allowed to go to school.