To help parents get their child’s immunizations up-to-date for this year’s Exclusion Day, Lane County Public Health’s (LCPH) Communicable Disease Program will be hosting a 2-day, walk-in immunization clinic, Tuesday, February 14th and Wednesday, February 15th.
Every year, Lane County Public Health officials review more than 50,000 records in order to make sure children’s immunizations are up-to-date. For those children whose immunization record is incomplete, a letter has been sent out to their parents asking them to schedule the required immunizations for their child.
“We know that it can be challenging for parents to find the time to schedule their child’s immunizations, hopefully these clinics will ease that burden,” said Lane County Communicable Disease Supervisor Nicole Sticka, RN.
This year, LCPH sent out just over 1,650 letters as compared to last year’s 2,300. The decrease is good news for public health officials but highlights areas for improvement. Specifically, there appears to be a trend toward a greater number of 2–5-year-olds missing vaccines they may have received at 12 and 18 months related to missed well-child checks.
In order to achieve what’s called “community immunity” or “herd immunity”, which protects any given population from widespread communicable disease outbreaks, 94 percent of the population must be immunized and that is still not the case .
“It’s easy to think of your child’s immunizations as exclusive to their own, individual health,” said Lane County Chief Health Officer Patrick Luedtke, MD. “The fact is, each and every one of our children’s immunizations affects their health, the health of their classmates and the health of our entire community.”
The clinic will take place on the 3rd floor, in room310, at Lane County Health & Human Services Charnelton Building, located at151 W. 7th Ave., from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Cost should not be a barrier to required immunizations, which are covered by the Vaccines for Children program. Children can also receive their required immunizations at their private provider, participating pharmacies, or a school-based health clinic.
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up