Some middle and high school students in Georgia will be required to get booster shots this summer before they can enroll in school this fall.
The state Department of Public Health has begun a campaign to let parents know their children need a pair of booster shots to guard against a series of diseases.
The new mandate requires that, starting this upcoming school year, students born on or after Jan. 1, 2002 and entering or transferring into seventh grade must get a booster shot known as Tdap to guard against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis. Those students must also get an adolescent meningococcal vaccination referred to as a MCV4.
The new requirements, tied to a law that goes into effect on July 1, also cover students who are new to Georgia and entering grades eight through 12.
Georgia was one of only five states in the country that did not require middle or high school students to get a Tdap booster, according to a survey from the Immunization Action Committee, which uses data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Walter Orenstein, professor of medicine and pediatrics at Emory University’s School of Medicine, praised the new booster requirements, noting that infectious disease experts have been pushing for booster shots for middle and high schoolers for many years.
“The concern we have is that vaccines are effective in the short term,” Dr. Orenstein said. “For some time, we have recommended a booster at 11 or 12 years of age.”
Typically, children are required to get immunizations at two months of age, four months of age and six months of age. Another round is given at 15 to 18 months and another between ages 4 and 6, just before a child is enrolled in school. But Orenstein said those vaccines can begin to lose their effectiveness in some children at age 10, making a booster in middle or high school a good idea.
Orenstein said the Tdap and MCV4 boosters can be given during a single trip to the doctor.
That could mean a scheduling scramble for parents, with some districts in Georgia beginning school in as little as six weeks.
Nancy Nydam, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Public Health, said vaccines “are the best defense we have against serious, preventable and, sometimes deadly, contagious diseases. They help avoid expensive therapies and hospitalization needed to treat infectious diseases like influenza and meningitis.”
She added: “Immunizations also reduce absences both at school and after school activities, and decrease the spread of illness at home, at school and in the community. We have seen a rise in pertussis (whooping cough) cases and that is another reason the Tdap is particularly important this year.”
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