Childhood Vax Rates Record High in 2007

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its latest data on childhood immunizations today and announced that the childhood vaccination rates are at or near record high in 2007 as compared to 2006 but still some parents are refusing to get their toddlers vaccinated due to unsubstantiated fears of vaccine safety.

The new report by CDC says that while large numbers of parents are vaccinating their kids but still some parents (less than 1 percent) don’t trust the vaccine and link it to health issues of children.

Julie Gerberding, CDC Director said, "The ongoing success of our nation's immunization program is largely dependent on the trust that parents put in the safety of vaccines and in those caregivers who administer them."

"I want to encourage parents to continue to be informed and to ask their pediatricians about the safety of vaccines or any other concerns they may have about their child's health,” Gerberding said.

The latest childhood vaccination statistics by CDC came a day after the new study found that there is ‘no connection’ between common childhood vaccine protecting children against measles, mumps and rubella vaccine or MMR and autism.

According to CDC report, a record 77.4% of kids in between the ages of 19 and 35 months received full recommended series of vaccinations and around 90% of kids got all but one of the six individual vaccines in the series except for the DTaP vaccine.

Anne Schuchat, CDC Immunization Director said, "What we found is 77.4 percent of toddlers have received all of the recommended vaccine. We have a target of 80 percent so we're pretty close and we're maintaining high levels compared to previous years."

The CDC report, based on data on 17,017 children says that 90 percent of children for the first time got vaccine for varicella (which reduces the risk of chicken pox) and the percentage of children who received the vaccination for pneumococcal conjugate vaccine PCV7 rose from 68 percent in 2003 to 90 percent in 2007.

The recommended vaccine series measured by National Immunization Survey (NIS) for children was:

3 doses of polio vaccine
1 or more doses of chickenpox vaccine
4 doses of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine
3 doses of Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine (Hib)
3 doses of hepatitis B vaccine
1 or more doses of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or MMR vaccine.

The CDC officials said that there have been several measles outbreak this year in US since 1996 (131 people have contracted measles) and it was due to lack of vaccination often due to the personal or parental beliefs.

Dr. Anne said, "What we are seeing is a pattern where parents have the opportunity to have their children vaccinated but decide not to and I think this is a wake up call."

Approximately 33,000 lives are saved each year in US alone thanks to childhood vaccinations, she said.