Measles Vaccinations In WI Kindergarteners Trend Down: What To Know

WISCONSIN — The number of Wisconsin kindergartners who are up to date on a suite of standard vaccinations, including those against measles, has followed national trends in recent years that show declining immunization rates against one of the world’s most contagious diseases.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows the percentage of children vaccinated against MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) declined nationally from about 95 percent in 2019-2020 to 94 percent the following school year and to 93 percent in the 2021-2022 school year, the last year for which data is available.

Though the decrease is slight, the CDC data shows about 250,000 school children nationwide are unprotected against measles, mumps and rubella, diseases that had been all but eradicated for decades before a tide of vaccine hesitancy began sweeping the country.

The MMR vaccination rate is the lowest in a decade, below the Healthy People 2030 target of 95 percent immunization coverage, which officials say is the level needed to prevent community transmission of measles.

In all, 32 states saw declines in MMR coverage in the 2021-2022 school year — the biggest dip in Georgia, where rates were down more than 5 percent. Rates varied from 78 percent in Alaska to 98.6 percent. Vaccination rates for DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis) and varicella (chickenpox) also declined nationwide.

A Department of Health Services report on vaccine coverage in Wisconsin among children aged 24 months shows a statewide decline in MMR coverage from 88.16 percent in 2013 to 81.92 percent in 2022. The report showed polio vaccine rates decreasing from 85.9 percent to 83.29 percent over the same time period.

In a news release Wednesday, the DHS said 89.9 percent of students met minimum immunization requirements during the 2022-2023 school year, a 1.2 percent increase over the previous year while 2.8 percent of students in the same school year were behind schedule, a decrease from the earlier year.

Around 5.4 percent of students in the state had a waiver for one or more vaccines during the 2022-2023 school year, a 1.2 percent increase over the previous year, the DHS said.

"Nationally, and in Wisconsin, we have seen a decrease over the past several years in the number of children who are up to date on their recommended childhood vaccinations, so we are pleased to see parents and caregivers getting their children caught up and protected ahead of this coming school year," said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, DHS Chief Medical Officer and State Epidemiologist in a news release. "Vaccines are safe, effective, and one of the strongest tools we as parents have to prevent our children from getting a vaccine-preventable disease."

Data from the CDC put Wisconsin's vaccine coverage for MMR, DTaP, varicella and polio down to 82.6 percent across the board, down from over 90 percent in the 2019-2020 school year.

Overall, the CDC recommends that children receive vaccinations against 14 diseases by they’re 2, and receive additional doses and immunizations through age 18.

Among those additional diseases is meningitis. Wisconsin health officials recently tried adding a meningitis vaccine to the required school list for middle and high schoolers, but the measure was blocked by state Republicans in March, according to the Associated Press.

See also: Meningitis Shots Added To Required Vaccine List In Wisconsin Schools

Vaccination requirements vary by state. All states require that incoming kindergartners get polio vaccines, and all but Iowa requires measles vaccinations. All but a handful of states require Hepatitis A vaccinations, but fewer than 20 require Hep. B.

Wisconsin requires vaccination for MMR, DTaP, Hepatitis B, varicella chickenpox and polio for entry to kindergarten. Exemptions are allowed for varicella if a parent reports a prior infection in their child, and rules for exemptions have remained unchanged in recent years.

A Kaiser Family Foundation Vaccine Monitor Poll in December showed that while the majority of Americans (71 percent) said healthy kids should get the MMR vaccine before starting kindergarten, but support is waning. Almost 3 in 10 (28 percent) said parents should be able to choose to vaccinate their children or not, even if it means putting their classmates at risk.

A pre-pandemic poll taken by Pew Research Center in October 2019 showed 82 percent of U.S. adults said measles vaccinations should be a condition of enrolling in kindergarten. Only 16 percent said measles vaccines should be discretionary.

National Institutes of Health studies suggest COVID-19 vaccine misinformation may be contributing to greater hesitancy about childhood vaccines.

Disruptions in day-to-day life also likely contributed to the lower measles coverage rates, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in November.

“The paradox of the pandemic is that while vaccines against COVID-19 were developed in record time and deployed in the largest vaccination campaign in history, routine immunization programs were badly disrupted, and millions of kids missed out on life-saving vaccinations against deadly diseases like measles,” he said. “Getting immunization programs back on track is absolutely critical. Behind every statistic in this report is a child at risk of a preventable disease.”

At the time, only about 81 percent of children worldwide had received their first measles dose, and only 71 percent had received their second, the lowest global coverage rates of the first dose since 2008.