Measles vaccinations down in the Tri-State

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - Doctors say there is a growing concern about the number of children in the Tri-State who aren’t being vaccinated for measles.

“Early in the pandemic, a lot of families were having difficulty perhaps accessing preventive care,” said Dr. Felicia Scaggs Huang, Cincinnati Children’s Interim Director of Infection, Prevention and Control. “I also think that some families are a little more nervous about vaccines with some of the misinformation and disinformation about vaccines in general that are common online.”

Doctors with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital say 95% of children need to be vaccinated against measles in order to make the spread from person to person to become unlikely.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published that our vaccine rate for measles specifically in Ohio kindergarteners dropped from 96% in 2014 to 89.6% in 2021,” Dr. Huang confirmed.

The doctor says there has been a real-life impact in the reduction of vaccinations which includes three different clusters of measles cases in Ohio and Kentucky.

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