Many of us will feel excited to send our kids off to school this fall. But before you pack their lunch for that first day of school, make sure your child is up to date on his/her immunizations. At a recent briefing, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urged parents to make sure their children are up to date on their vaccines.

“As we work to get our children back to school, we certainly do not want to encounter other preventable infectious outbreaks such as measles and mumps,” Walensky said.

According to a CDC study, approximately 44% of children in the United States were behind on their immunizations.  The CDC also noted a substantial decline in pediatric outpatient visits began around the start of the pandemic last year. Along with those came a decline in provider orders for childhood vaccines.

Among the slate of childhood vaccines, the CDC is particularly concerned by a reduction in orders for measles-containing vaccines such as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Orders for those shots through the Vaccines for Children program were down by 1.4 million doses, or 21.3%. Orders for HPV vaccines were down by 21%, and those for the tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis vaccine were down 21.1%.

In a recent interview on KENS-TV, our very own board member, Dr. Leslie Weisberg,  BCBSTX Market Chief Medical Officer talks about the importance of vaccinations.

Weisberg said, “It’s important for parents to get their children immunized, because this helps prevent children from contracting deadly diseases. … It’s also important because it helps to keep other children safe, because these diseases tend to be transmitted from child to child.”

The CDC currently recommends  16 vaccines – some requiring multiple doses at specific ages and times that from birth to 18 years old. Recommended vaccines include:

• Influenza (annual flu shot)
• Diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP)
• Tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (Tdap “booster” for adolescents)
• Poliovirus (IPV)
• Measles, mumps and rubella (MMR)
• Varicella (Chickenpox)
• Pneumococcal (PCV)
• Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib)
• Rotavirus
• Hepatitis B (Hep B)
• Hepatitis A (Hep A)
• Human papillomavirus (HPV)
• Meningococcal (MenACWY)
• Meningococcal B (MenB)**

**MenB is recommended for specific populations only. If you have questions, ask your child’s doctor.

It is important to do right for our children. Protecting them from preventable diseases can help them lead healthy lives.  The Caring Foundation of Texas wants to make sure that nothing stands in the way of that by removing barriers of cost and accessibility.  Click here to find out if there is a clinic in your neck of woods.