State has highest vaccination rate for kindergartners

JACKSON – Mississippi has the highest rate of vaccination coverage for kindergarten students nationwide, according to a recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 45,719 kindergarten students enrolled in public and private kindergarten classrooms throughout the state during the 2013-14 school year had 99.7 percent vaccination coverage. That percentage was greater than the national median of 93.3 percent to 95 percent for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine; the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine; and the varicella vaccine.

Mississippi requires five different vaccines to be administered prior to entering first grade.

“We continue to be very proud of our vaccination rates,” said Dr. Mary Currier, state health officer. “Mississippi’s strong school entry immunization law is protecting Mississippi residents from outbreaks of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases that other states have experienced.”

The department grants all requests for medical exemptions to vaccination that are submitted by a licensed Mississippi pediatrician, family physician or internist.

Mississippi, however, is one of 31 states that does not allow philosophical exemptions for children attending school or daycare. The Mississippi Supreme Court deemed religious exemptions unconstitutional in 1979.

“Vaccines not only protect the children who are vaccinated, but also protect those around them who may be too young to be fully immunized or those with weakened immune systems,” Currier said. “Mississippi children continue to die unnecessarily from vaccine-preventable diseases. Two children died from whooping cough in 2008 and 2012, which is preventable through vaccination.”

For U.S. children born between 1994 and 2013, immunizations are estimated to prevent more than 300 million illnesses, 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths.