It’s still not quite five digits — the Northwest suburban public health department says its target for its yearly measles vaccination effort isn’t reached. But it’s close.
The pool of people who are at risk for bringing the disease to the Washington region is approaching 96 percent, according to Howard County public health officials.
“We are rounding up that final decimal point and getting it over 90 percent,” Kevin Perkins, a Howard County Department of Health spokesman, said in an email. “The 120 residents who remain at risk are highly unvaccinated. We are moving closer to having them immunized against measles.”
One of the major complaints from concerned moms and physicians around the region is that a bill passed this year that scaled back the requirement that unvaccinated students be excluded from schools is preventing needed progress.
Health officials point out that there are often hundreds of unvaccinated people in one school or area and thousands in county communities, all of whom could raise community exposure risks if something were to happen.
Under county public health law passed in 2016, Howard County public schools were required to create an accommodation plan for unvaccinated students who attended classes for up to 180 days. They were provided a procedure and process for having the unvaccinated removed from their classes or assigned to any participating county school.
Last year, the plan was created, and parents were notified of it by letter. The notice said any request for exemptions must include a statement from a pediatrician stating that medical reasons were the major reason an unvaccinated student may not be vaccinated for measles, mumps, rubella, or varicella (chickenpox). In addition, a parent may provide documentation of one of several recognized medical conditions, such as meningitis, chemotherapy, a brain tumor, spinal cord injury, or a congenital disorder.
In January 2017, a health district memo stated that families had submitted “significant numbers” of waiver requests.
“In fact, as of Sept. 29, 77 percent of them were for removal due to medical reasons and 25 percent for religious reasons,” the health district memo stated.
But on Wednesday, the health department announced a change in its planned statement. The health district said school guidance counselors will now be required to tell parents that their child could be excluded from a school because of a medical hardship, not because of refusal to be vaccinated.
Howard County has always been in the forefront of measles outbreaks in the region. In March 2016, county officials came under fire after scores of unvaccinated children were exposed to measles and a healthy adult ultimately contracted the disease. The child was otherwise healthy, but her parents refused to vaccinate her because of religious beliefs.
In April 2016, Howard County lead the entire region in cases of measles. The county had most of the area’s cases and the only instance of the disease spreading to parts of Baltimore City, according to the Maryland Department of Health. The outbreak affected 18 children and two adults, most of whom were believed to be school-age.
When the outbreak was disclosed, then-Gov. Larry Hogan, R, commended county health officials and said the state had put in place rules to better protect residents, including increasing the number of health workers at designated schools to ensure they are not putting other children at risk. A few days after the outbreak was announced, the state law taking effect later this year would remove non-medical vaccine exemptions from public schools.
While Howard County has historically had a higher immunization rate than the region, it has also seen outbreaks of diseases that parents with non-medical exemptions were previously allowed to exempt children from including measles. The 1918 and 1957 and 1970 and 1982 outbreaks were all linked to unvaccinated children.
Earlier this year, Howard County officials said they would increase efforts to vaccinate the people who are at risk, including stepping up efforts to encourage families to attend public health clinics, increasing reminders in school guidance counselor office, and making phone calls to individuals and visiting at least one school with signs alerting parents of who is at risk and when officials will be at the school.
Howard County has a target of getting all of its unvaccinated children vaccinated or separated from the community by placing them in group homes or other locations. Howard has a target of getting all unvaccinated children vaccinated or separated from the community by placing them in group homes or other locations.
This article was written by L.A. Alfred, Washington Post Staff Writer.
