PORTLAND, Maine — Several hundred more schoolchildren have received vaccinations for measles in the past year, boosting the state’s protection against a measles outbreak.
The Portland Press Herald reports that up to 400 more grade school children received the measles vaccination in the past school year. Maine’s voluntary opt-out rate remains among the nation’s highest, so health officials are cheering the improvement.
The newspaper says Maine’s overall nonmedical opt-out rate for kindergarten students declined to 3.7 percent. That’s still higher than the national average of 2 percent.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention released vaccination rates in response to a Freedom of Access Act request by the newspaper. The newspaper has compiled a database based on two years of school-by-school data.