Routine childhood vaccinations among kindergartners in U.S. public and private schools were down the previous school year, according to the U.
S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About 92.
3 percent of kindergartners got the DTAP vaccine in the last school year, while 92.7 got the MMR vaccine, the agency said. The polio vaccine uptake range was 92.
6 percent, while the varicella uptake was 92.4 percent, according to the CDC. “Decreasing vaccination coverage and increasing exemptions increase the risk for vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks,” the agency said.
“Efforts by health departments, schools, and providers are needed to ensure that students begin school fully vaccinated.” At the same time, the vaccine exemption rate increased from 3 percent to 3.3 percent for the 2023–24 year and increased broadly in 41 jurisdictions.
In 14 jurisdictions, that figure jumped to 5 percent, it said. “The decreases in coverage, combined with increases in exemptions, jeopardize reaching the Healthy People 2030 95 percent coverage of kindergartners with MMR target,” the CDC report authors wrote. “The number of jurisdictions with exemption rates” greater than 5 percent increased from two in 2020-2021 to 14 in 2023-2024, they added.
Meanwhile, about 280,000 kindergartners “did not have documentation of 2 MMR doses and were potentially at risk for measles infection,” the agency added. “These results could indicate changes in attitudes toward routine vaccin.