Free measles vaccination clinic
When: 1-7 p.m. Thursday, March 5
Where: Clallam County Health and Human Services, 111 E. Third St., Port Angeles.
Note: Extended clinic hours to offer more flexibility outside of regular office hours
More info: Call 417-2274 to make appointments. Walk-ins will be served but may have to wait.
After more than a month of ongoing reports, Clallam County’s four recent measles cases have fully recovered, health officials report.
Jeanette Stehr-Green, Clallam County interim health officer, said the most recent case, a 14-year-old boy, has recovered and no new cases have been reported.
The Clallam County Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the boy’s case on Feb. 19 and that he is the brother of Clallam’s second case, a 5-year-old girl.
“We don’t have any more cases in isolation,” Stehr-Green said.
“When diagnosed, they stay in (isolation) for four days. We also follow 21 days of the onset of their rash to see if there were any people who may be exposed to them when infectious. We’re still in that 21-day period of the last three cases. We’re still not out of the woods.”
The two most recent cases, a 43-year-old Port Angeles man and the boy, were in quarantine during their infectious period but the 21-day period isn’t clear until March 15. Plus, the State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mandate another 21 days before considering the area “all clear” on April 5, Stehr-Green said.
How Clallam’s first case of measles, a man in his 50s from Port Angeles who was diagnosed on Feb. 3, was infected is still unknown.
“There have been significant efforts to find out,” Stehr-Green said, “but it’s never been determined.”
The three most recent cases were not vaccinated, she said.
Measles exemptions
Representatives with the Washington State Department of Health report a recent increase in information requests for data about schools regarding immunizations.
Locally, schools have been a center of discussion for vaccinations as of late with the 5-year-old girl a kindergartener at Olympic Christian School in Port Angeles.
School principal Gary Rude said 12 students of 82 at the campus who were not vaccinated were quarantined to their homes until Feb. 27.
In the 2013-2014 school year, Olympic Christian School reported 18 of their 115 students were exempt from some or all vaccinations including the MMR, measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. None were exempt for religious reasons though.
Stehr-Green said the three exemptions parents can use for their children are for medical, religious and personal reasons.
Medical requires a doctor’s signature which may be for an allergy, she said.
A religious exemption requires a leader in the church to sign a statement that it is for religious purposes, she said, while a personal exemption requires a parent to go through medical counsel and receive approval from a health care provider.
State Rep. Steve Tharinger (24th District) is co-sponsoring House Bill 2009-2015-16 that eliminates the philosophical/personal objection stipulation to immunizations for children attending schools.
Sequim schools
Sonja Bittner, Sequim school district nurse, said all schools must report their vaccination rates to the state. All of Sequim’s public and private schools have reported this year and last but the 2014-2015 school year isn’t posted online yet.
The Seattle Times reported about 300 Washington schools hadn’t reported to the state in the past year.
Bittner said she attributes this partially to a nursing shortage in school districts statewide.
“Luckily, our superintendent has been very supportive of (health care),” she said.
This is Bittner’s third year as the Sequim schools’ nurse, she said, and the Sequim School District hired a second school nurse for Sequim High School and full-time health services personnel at both elementary schools.
This year, she said the measles vaccinations rate is a moving target.
“It’s changing every hour,” she said. “Even those with exemptions are choosing to get immunized.”
She said Sequim School District’s five schools would be at less than 10 percent exemptions right now whereas in last year’s report Sequim schools had about a 9-percent exemption rate.
“I feel good about it,” Bittner said. “This is a remarkably low number. What I read in the paper and elsewhere, there is just so much higher numbers in other districts.”
Last year, Sequim’s School District’s schools’ exemption rates were as follows: Greywolf Elementary 47 exemptions of 506 students, Helen Haller Elementary 46 of 580, Olympic Peninsula Academy 29 of 93, Sequim High School 71 of 1,020 and Sequim Middle School is 57 of 590.
In Sequim’s private schools, Five Acre School reported 15 of 51 students exempt in kindergarten-sixth grade and Mountain View Christian School five of 25 exempt.
Doug Allison, principal at Mountain View, said this year they have four students exempt for personal reasons of 23 students.
“We plan to comply with the state standard of quarantining any non-vaccinated students if any of our students are diagnosed with measles,” Allison said.
Kristin Smith, office manager at Five Acre, echoed Allison.
“We’re the same as any other school with reporting,” she said.
Five Acre reports its kindergarten-eighth grade classes this year have five exemptions for 60 students.
“Five Acre School’s rate of immunization may be unique in the Sequim/Port Angeles geographic area,” Smith said, “but we experience similar vaccination rates as other independent/non-religious schools.”
For preschools, Paul Throne, spokesman for the Office of Immunization, said they file their immunization numbers through child care licenses handled by the Department of Social and Health Services.
He said there is no analysis currently for preschool immunizations because his office focuses on school-age reports.
Smith said Five Acre School had 11 exemptions for 34 students in their prekindergarten classes last year and nine exemptions of 38 this year.
Bittner said the Sequim School District’s 0-6 program Developmental Preschool’s vaccination numbers are filed with Helen Haller Elementary.
For more information on local and state school immunization numbers, visit http://pnw.cc/JT7vK.
