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NYC records its first measles cases of 2024. Child vaccinations are still down.
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Mar 1, 2024
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By
Caroline Lewis
Published Mar 1, 2024
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City health officials say New York City’s child vaccination rates still aren’t up to pre-pandemic levels — reflecting public health officials’ struggles with outreach, even as some states grapple with measles outbreaks.
The city has recorded two measles cases so far this year, although both were travel-related and not due to local transmission, the city health department told Gothamist on Thursday.
Department spokesperson Patrick Gallahue said a few measles cases a year isn’t unusual, but there were none in the city from 2020 through 2022, which he attributed to limited travel during the pandemic. There was one reported case in 2023.
Nationally, cases are on the rise this year. There have been 35 reported cases of measles across the United States from Jan. 1 through Feb. 22, compared with 58 cases during all of last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year’s cases include an outbreak of nine cases over six weeks in Philadelphia and at least one case in South Jersey.
As of this week, 95.3% of students in K-12 public and charter schools throughout New York City are up to date with all vaccine requirements, compared with 98.5% before the COVID-19 pandemic, testified Dr. Celia Quinn, the city's deputy commissioner for disease control, at a City Council hearing on childhood vaccination rates on Thursday afternoon.
“We are working closely with New York City public schools, providers and parents to bring up that number even further to ensure students and schools remain safe,” Quinn said.
Quinn said immunization rates are down between 2 and 16 percentage points from 2019, depending on vaccine type and age group. She noted that 4- to- 6-year-olds, who were infants or toddlers during the pandemic's height, have to play catchup.
Vaccination rates dropped during the first years of the pandemic partly because many parents put off routine doctors’ visits, leading small children to fall behind on their vaccine schedules, Quinn said. The CDC recommends that children get about 10 different vaccines — some of which require multiple doses on different schedules — before the age of 2.
Quinn also cited other factors for the decline in vaccination rates. “Certainly, we have seen a lot of vaccine misinformation and disinformation and that accelerated during the pandemic,” she said. “I also think that there are definite access issues and various barriers to people prioritizing getting all of the vaccines on the recommended schedule.”
She noted that the city doesn’t track vaccination by immigration status but said the city health department is working to make sure new arrivals know how to get vaccinated — for instance, by informing families about community health centers where kids can get the shots.
City shelters for recent arrivals have also provided vaccination onsite to ensure school-aged children are up to date. Still, workers with one company hired to provide those shots, Affiliated Physicians, reported some early mix-ups with vaccine records, among other errors, last year.
During the hearing, some councilmembers suggested that the city should send out more direct reminders to families to get young children vaccinated. Quinn said that effort is largely up to their primary care providers, but noted the health department works closely with the city education department to make sure families are informed about vaccine requirements. She added that children are forced to stay home if they fall out of compliance.
When it comes to measles, Quinn said, a 95% vaccination rate is sufficient for herd immunity. But “wherever there are pockets of lower vaccine coverage, the risk of an outbreak is going to increase depending on how low that coverage gets," she said.
There were 649 confirmed measles cases during a particularly bad outbreak in the city between 2018 and 2019, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Most of those affected were members of the Orthodox Jewish community. Among those whose vaccination history was known, about 85% were unvaccinated, according to the study.
Children are supposed to get their first MMR shot — short for measles, mumps and rubella — between 12 and 15 months of age, and their second shot by the age of 6, per the CDC. The city health department said 97.3% of local children had received both doses during the 2022-2023 school year.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo eliminated any religious exemption for vaccination for students amid the measles outbreak in 2019. Fewer than .01% of schoolchildren currently have an approved medical exemption, Quinn said.
Tagged
vaccines
new york city
City Council
Health and Science
Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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