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Date: Wednesday, July 23, 1997 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: CDC Press Office (404)639-3286
In a White House ceremony, President Clinton praised the achievement and called on HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala to investigate the feasibility of a system of state and community-based immunization registries. A linked system of registries would make it easier for parents and their health care providers to check on children's immunization status.
The 1996 goals were set in 1993 when President Clinton launched the Childhood Immunization Initiative (CII) in response to low vaccination rates among preschool children. HHS' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that CII vaccination coverage goals for 1996 were exceeded.
"These immunization rates clearly show that when America directs its energy and adequate resources to a problem, it gets results," said Secretary Shalala. "This is an important milestone for public health, and we have reached it through a strong partnership of private and public health professionals, community coalitions and private businesses. Now we must continue this work to achieve even higher immunization rates and to reach our goals for the year 2000."
The CII goals for 1996 were to increase vaccination coverage levels of the most critical doses of vaccine to at least 90 percent among 2-year-old children and eliminate or reduce vaccine preventable diseases. According to CDC's National Immunization Survey, 95 percent of 2-year-olds received three doses of diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis vaccine (DTP); 91 percent received three doses of polio vaccine; 92 percent received three doses of Haemophilus influenzae type b (causes a form of meningitis) vaccine; and 91 percent received a measles-containing vaccine.
In 1993, the goal set for the newly recommended hepatitis B vaccine was 70 percent by 1996; hepatitis b vaccination reached 82 percent in 1996. The overall national immunization coverage level for the most commonly used combined series, which includes 4 doses of DTP, 3 doses of polio and a measles-containing vaccine, increased to 78 percent in 1996, the highest national level ever reported in the United States for preschool children.
In 1996, three diseases reached the elimination targets; there were no reported cases of tetanus among children under 15 years of age or of poliomyelitis due to wild polio virus and, with 725 cases of mumps in 1996, surpassed by more than half the reduction goal set for mumps of 1,600. Reported levels of disease were at or near record lows and close to the 1996 elimination targets for diphtheria (4 cases), Haemophilus influenzae invasive disease among children under 5 years of age (165 cases), rubella (196 cases) and measles (443 cases).
"The few hundred cases of vaccine-preventable diseases that occurred in 1996 stand in marked contrast to the thousands of cases that occurred annually in the five years before our initiative began," CDC Director David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., said. "Vaccines work -- they are superb, cost-effective tools to prevent disease. However, parents can't be sure their child is fully protected until they check. We encourage parents and health care providers to stop and check a child's shot record at every medical visit."
Some 11,000 children are born each day in the United States, and parents need to monitor the vaccinations that are needed over the first two years of their baby's life.
At today's White House ceremony, President Clinton directed Secretary Shalala to convene a meeting on immunization registries, to include federal, state and local government officials, health care providers and organizations, vaccine manufacturers, information system specialists and civic leaders. The participants would begin to identify and address the technical and policy challenges to establishing an integrated immunization registry system to meet state and local needs.
The CII was launched in August 1993. Its five strategies include: improving the quality and quantity of immunization services; reducing vaccine costs for parents; increasing community participation, education and partnerships; improving systems for monitoring diseases and vaccinations; and improving vaccines and vaccine use.
The CII goal for the year 2000 is to ensure that at least 90 percent of all two-year-olds receive the full series of vaccines.
Parents and health care providers can learn more about vaccines and the diseases they prevent through CDC's National Immunization Information Hotline: 1 800-232-2522 English or 1 800-232-0233 Spanish. Information on childhood immunization is also available on the Internet. Visit CDC's home page at www.cdc. gov/nip/home.htm for the most current information on childhood immunizations.