COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Vaccines against American schoolchildren being required to suffer from terrible diseases such as polio, measles, tetanus and whooping cough are far behind this year, threatening new complications in a school year already damaged by COVID. 19.
The lag was caused by pandemic-related disorders last year at the doctor’s routine visits, in the summer, and at sports fields where children usually receive their vaccines.
Now, pediatricians and educators strive to ensure that delays do not prevent children from leaving school or leave them vulnerable to contagious diseases.
“It’s a big problem,” said Richard Long, executive director of Learning First Alliance, an association of educational organizations that has organized a public outreach campaign. “This fall we will have children who will get seriously ill and the sad part is, for the most part, avoidable.”
The number of flu-free vaccines ordered and administered through the federal Childhood Vaccines program, which covers about half of Americans under the age of 18 and serves as a barometer of national trends, plummeted after the former president Donald Trump declared a national emergency in March 2020, a review by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A subsequent review of 10 jurisdictions, published in June, showed that, although administered doses approached pre-pandemic levels again last fall, “they did not increase to the level that would have been necessary to recover the children. who did not receive routine vaccinations long. “
A full calculation of schools is still weeks off, when grace periods that allow unvaccinated children to temporarily attend school begin to take place in the country.
But the recent rise of the COVID-19 related to the delta variant has added new obstacles, including massage parlors and clinics, and even the potential shortage of drug vials, syringes and needles, to the whirlwind of confusion and fatigue. who are already facing those working to tackle the problem. waiting portfolio, health and pharmacy experts said.
Dr. Melinda Wharton, director of the CDC’s Immunization Services Division, said political rhetoric and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines don’t help either.
“In many communities, we polarize vaccines: either you believe in vaccines or you don’t believe in vaccines. And we are accumulating a lot of perspectives and issues in an artificial dichotomy, ”he said. “That worries me a lot.”
Dr. Sara “Sally” Goza, immediate president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said her practice in Fayetteville, Georgia, was flooded with families who needed to get stuck. This led to an accumulation of patients targeted on the first day of school in early August.
“In fact, we’ve even had patient calls from other pediatricians,” he said, “because I guess they’ve been told that somehow, magically, we can work and reach out to them when their doctors they are not able to achieve them “.
And some parents remain complacent, according to experts, either because they are vaccinated or because they are exhausted by the pandemic and come from a generation that does not know the ravages of diseases like polio.
“You just have the general population saying,‘ I’m tired of thinking about medical issues. I want to be on holiday, I want to be out, I want to go to the coast, whatever it is, ”said Wharton. “So getting a vaccine other than COVID doesn’t seem like the top priority for people.”
When the Pennsylvania Department of Health last week reminded parents that they should add their children’s routine vaccines to back-to-school checklists, the comments section merged into a discussion of vaccines. COVID-19 and mask mandates.
Even those committed to getting the shots sounded tired. “This is getting ridiculous with people,” one parent remarked. “It’s very hard when you don’t get an appointment until SCHOOL starts!” wrote another.
State departments of education and health have joined local district efforts to increase the exchange of information about vaccines and opportunities for children to receive gunshots and governors, including Maryland Republican Larry Hogan, and Kansas Democrat Laura Kelly have been elevated this month as National Immunization Awareness Month. as a way to reinforce compliance.
The Learning First Alliance’s Power to Protect Vaccination Campaign, supported by national PTA unions and teachers, has provided information to principals, teachers, school nurses and support staff, such as bus drivers and janitors, about the traits that they need students of different ages and where to get them.
“Encouraging and encouraging is really the role here,” the group advised in a June tweet shared by the American Federation of Teachers and others.