By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Kids are still getting sick when they didn’t have to, and this still concerns health officials. They’re talking about diseases that can be prevented by vaccination, such as measles, mumps, and rubella.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Andrew Kroger says fewer than 1 percent of infants get no vaccinations. However, he says:
“For vaccines such as measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR vaccine, we are on the order of 90 percent coverage, but we need higher levels to prevent the outbreaks that can still occur in this country.”
Kroger says vaccines are extremely safe, can prevent most cases of disease, and can make the disease milder when it is not prevented.
He says parents whose kids are behind on vaccines can still get their kids caught up.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.