United States: The total number of vaccine exemptions that have been reported among US kindergarteners has risen to another record value during the 2023-24 academic year.
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The CDC said that almost 3.3 percent of the kindergarteners were exempted from one or more than one vaccine in the past school year. In the previous year, this exemption was at 3 percent.
According to the CDC statement, “During the 2023-2024 school year, vaccination coverage among kindergartners in the U.S. decreased for all reported vaccines from the year before, ranging from 92.3 percent for diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) to 92.7% for measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR),” the Hill reported.
What more are the experts stating?
The health agency noted that the rate of exceptions had risen among 40 states that reported exemptions to those agencies, which saw exemption rates increase, while 14 of those had exemption rates of more than 5 percent.
There are medical exemptions made for vaccinations, as all US states require students to also vaccinate against some communicable diseases.
Almost all states allow for religious exemptions, while fewer allow for exemptions (on religious or nonreligious grounds) based on personal belief.
There are states like California, New York, and Maine that don’t allow any nonmedical exemptions, religious or not.
Health authorities would like the coverage of MMR immunizations to be 95 percent. Hill reported that since 2019, the rate of children vaccinated for MMR in the US has been falling.
But concerns rekindled that the US could lose its status as a country free of measles resumed earlier this year when a spate of measles outbreaks continued.
A spate of measles outbreaks earlier this year renewed concerns the U.S. could lose its status as a country where measles is considered eliminated.
In the 2023-24 school year, some 280,000 kindergarteners in the U.S. started school without documentation that they were up to date on MMR vaccinations.