When the new school year starts later this month, some seventh-graders and their parents may be in for a surprise: For the first time, those students are required to have certain immunizations before they can attend classes.
The Utah Department of Health now requires students born after July 1, 1993, to prove they've been given immunizations for diphtheria//tetanus and for varicella (chicken pox). In cases where a child has actually already had chicken pox, health officials say a parent's word will be sufficient.
The students must also have completed a three-dose hepatitis B vaccine series. Most children have already had that one, which has been required for those in kindergarten since 1993.
And all students in grades, kindergarten through high school, must have had two doses of the mumps/measles/rubella (MMR) vaccine and other required immunizations.
Although a pertussis immunization is not mandated, health officials are suggesting that students who have to get the tetanus/diphtheria shot get the vaccine that is formulated to include pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough. The Tdap vaccine, as the combination's called, won't increase needle pokes and could reduce the chance of becoming ill, said Caroline Green, immunization school coordinator for the state Department of Health.
Parts of Utah, particularly Salt Lake County, have seen increases in pertussis cases recently. And the illness, while mostly pesky and miserable for those who have it, can be deadly for very young children.
Although the new immunization schedule is a first when it comes to the older kids, only those entering seventh grade must have proof they've had all the immunizations. "That doesn't mean eight, ninth, 10th-graders shouldn't have them," said Green.
She hopes that parents who are taking a seventh-grader in for shots will take along older siblings and get them those same vaccines, as well. "It's something all adolescents need," Green said.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com