West Virginia’s kindergarten vaccination rate continued to drop during the 2022-23 school year, but it was still higher than the national average. (Getty Images)
While West Virginia’s kindergarten vaccination rate continued to drop during the 2022-23 school year, it was still higher than the national average, something health care professionals attribute to the state’s strong school vaccine laws.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2022-2023 — the latest for which data is available — 95.6% of the state’s kindergarteners had their school-required vaccines, down as much as 1% or 2%, depending on the vaccine, from the year prior.
By contrast, the national rate for kindergarteners getting the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine during the same school year was 93.1%.
“[95.6%] is sufficient to keep us healthy, as a herd,” said Dr. Jennifer Gerlach, an associate professor at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and president of the West Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “The goal, really, is to have every child that’s able to be safely immunized, immunized and ready to go to school. West Virginia is a leader in the nation in this.”
West Virginia’s vaccination rates for 2 year olds are lower than those for kindergarteners, pointing to the success of the state’s school vaccination laws, she said.
“If you look at our rates of hitting the vaccine schedule and ready to go to school, we’re one of the highest in the country because of our strong immunization policy,” Gerlach said.
West Virginia, like all other states, requires that kids attending school be vaccinated against certain infectious diseases, including measles, polio and chicken pox. The Mountain State is one of only five states nationally that do not allow religious or philosophical exemptions to those vaccine requirements. West Virginia allows only medical exemptions to those vaccination requirements.
According to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, the state processed 71 medical exemption requests during the 2022-23 school year. Of those, 41, or 57.7%, were granted and while 30, or 42.3%, were denied because they did not qualify as a medical contraindication or precaution.
Gerlach said the state’s strong vaccination law protects all residents. She pointed to an April measles case in Monongalia County, the state’s first since 2009 . The case, reported in an adult resident of the county, did not spread or become an outbreak.
“Every state around us geographically has a different immunization policy, and they have had measles outbreaks,” she said. “West Virginia has not, because we have such a strong immunization policy. It protects children. It protects teenagers. It protects adults.”
Kindergarten vaccination rates fell during the COVID-19 pandemic nationally and in West Virginia as children missed well child visits and preventative health care appointments, a spokesperson for the state Department of Health said in response to emailed questions.
“In 2020, the CDC reported a notable drop in orders for pediatric vaccines,” said Annie Moore, director of communication for the department. “Some studies have reported between 26% and 41% of households had at least one child miss or delay a well visit during the pandemic.”
Moore said the state is working to raise awareness about the drop in childhood vaccination rates, as well as coordinating outreach efforts for a Well Child Visit initiative. The Department of Health’s Immunization Registry sends out automated reminders to families about when their child is eligible for routine childhood immunizations, she said.
Gerlach, with Marshall and the West Virginia Academy of Pediatrics, said the most important thing West Virginia can do to keep the state’s immunization rates high is to keep its strong vaccination policy.
State Gov. Jim Justice earlier this year vetoed a bill that would have weakened that law, allowing private and parochial schools to establish their own vaccination requirements. Supporters of House Bill 5105, say the debate over vaccination exemptions could be back next year, when the state will have a new governor.
“We are a leader in the nation, and I don’t feel like that gets enough positive press,” Gerlach said. “We do a really good job keeping our children safe from vaccine-preventable illnesses. We don’t have pertussis outbreaks. We don’t have measles outbreaks because we have strong school-age immunization policy, and the best thing we can do is keep it that way.”
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