HARTFORD — As measles continues to spread in the United States with cases surpassing 700 this year, the Connecticut Department of Public Health plans to release information on just how many unvaccinated children attend each school in the state.
Department of Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell sent a letter Tuesday to all school superintendents to let them know they will be posting public and private school immunization-related rates on their website by the end of the week.
Coleman-Mitchell said the school-level information is to “increase public awareness of immunization rates in local communities, which may lead to increased engagement and focus on increasing immunization rates to reduce the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases.”
Previously, the Department of Public Health said it would not publicly disseminate school-based information or even the number children per town that aren’t vaccinated based on their religious or medical exemptions.
In response to a CTNewsJunkie Freedom of Information request in February, the department said, “Under Conn. Gen. Stat. sec. 19a-25, the Department cannot publish, make available or disseminate reports of the findings of studies of morbidity and mortality (such as a school or school district’s immunization rates) or any other documents that include identifiable health data or any item, collection, or grouping of health data that makes the individual or organization supplying it or described in it identifiable (e.g. in the case of the annual immunization survey, a specific school).”
The lack of information prompted House Majority Leader Matt Ritter and Senate President Martin Looney to team up to...
from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Number-of-unvaccinated-children-in-CT-schools-to-13807928.php
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