Doctors urge parents to check kids’ vaccines as school year begins

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — With the second week of the school year underway, parents and students are still adjusting to new schedules and classrooms. Doctors say another important back-to-school priority is making sure children are up to date on their vaccinations.

For parents like Heather Faison, getting her child vaccinated is about keeping him protected.

“I want to make sure he gets his vaccinations so he can be safe,” Faison said.

But vaccines are once again at the center of a growing national conversation, as doctors warn that misinformation and declining vaccination rates could leave more children vulnerable to preventable illnesses.

“There’s just a lot of misinformation and misconception about vaccines in general,” said Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician and chief medical officer for the Association of Immunization Managers. “And unfortunately, parents and even lawmakers see a tremendous amount of information coming from all different kinds of sources, and not all of those are credible, reliable, scientific sources of information.”

Fiscus said some of the skepticism surrounding vaccines can be traced back to the COVID-19 pandemic, with concerns continuing to affect vaccination rates today.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of kindergarteners who were up to date on the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine fell from 95.2% during the 2019-20 school year to 92.5% last school year.

That represents a 2.7 percentage-point decline. The CDC estimates about 286,000 kindergarteners were not fully protected against measles last school year.

Fiscus said even a relatively small decline in vaccination coverage can have a significant impact, particularly as measles cases increase in some parts of the country, including neighboring South Carolina.

She said outbreaks can begin when an unvaccinated or otherwise susceptible person contracts measles while traveling and unknowingly brings the highly contagious virus back to a community with lower vaccination coverage.

“So all it takes is for someone who is susceptible to fly to, say, a country in Europe, not know they have it, and bring it back to that community that is low on vaccination coverage to set off an outbreak,” Fiscus said.

Measles is not the only vaccine-preventable illness doctors want parents to consider.

Fiscus also pointed to influenza, chickenpox, mumps and rubella as illnesses that can be prevented through vaccination.

She also said parents should not be concerned about children receiving multiple vaccines during the same visit.

“There is no problem with giving multiple vaccines in one visit to your child, and really, we prefer that,” Fiscus said. “It’s easier on your child, it’s easier for you. You don’t have to come back and forth to the doctor so many times.”