WASHINGTON – About 79 percent of the nation’s toddlers are getting vaccinated on time, a record level but not yet good enough, especially in pockets of the country where inoculations lag, federal health officials reported Thursday.
Connecticut was “the superstar,” getting 94 percent of toddlers their main series of vaccinations on time last year, said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Washington state lagged at 75.3 percent, the CDC reported. Worst in the nation was Colorado, at 67.5 percent. Four other states had fewer than 75 percent on-time shots: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia.
But even with immunization rates steadily rising, there are “a million vulnerable children” today, toddlers who haven’t gotten their full series of shots, Gerberding said.
In 2002, almost 75 percent of the nation’s 19- to 35-month-olds had received a full series of inoculations against nine diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, meningitis-causing Haemophilus influenza or Hib, measles, mumps, rubella and hepatitis B.
Last year, that number rose to 79.4 percent, new CDC data show – almost to the government’s goal of 80 percent of toddlers getting on-time vaccinations by 2010.
In other vaccination news, the CDC reported:
* Almost 85 percent of toddlers received the chickenpox vaccine last year, up from 81 percent in 2002.
* About 68 percent had three on-time doses of the pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar, which protects against meningitis and ear infections. That’s up from 41 percent in 2002. Recurring shortages over the last year have limited access to a final fourth dose.
* The newest challenge is flu vaccine, now recommended for babies and toddlers age 6 months to 23 months.
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