With low vaccination rates among Alaska children comes the risk of the return of vaccine-preventable illnesses like polio, measles and mumps, health officials say.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alaska saw a significant drop in the percentage of children who were up to date on their routine vaccinations — a dip that has been slow to return to normal levels, state health officials said inBy June of last year, just 55% of young children in Alaska between 19 and 35 months old had received all of their recommended shots. That’s a few percentage points above an all-time low of 51% in December 2021, but still well below a pre-pandemic high of 65% in 2019.
Routine childhood immunizations for diseases such as hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus, polio and the flu are a vitally important way of priming a child’s immune system to protect them against potentially deadly illnesses from an early age. When uptake is high enough,“The No. 1 risk of death for an infant in this country and around the world is infectious diseases,” said Dr. Monique Child, an Anchorage-based pediatrician.
“While childhood vaccination coverage rates improved quickly in the US overall, in Alaska, coverage rates have remained considerably lower than pre-pandemic levels,” the health department noted.Q&A: Thousands of Alaskans on Medicaid could lose coverage in the coming months. Here’s what to know.Sarah Aho, immunization program manager with the Alaska Department of Health, said that Alaska’s remote geography could be contributing to barriers to access to routine medical care.
“I’ve had established patients that have been on the fence about the COVID vaccine, but are vaccinated for everything else. And I’ve literally asked, ‘You’ve trusted my medical information for all the other medication. Why not this one?’ And I’ve seen a young mom actually say, ‘You’re right. Let’s do it.’ ”
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