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Less than 5 percent of Lancaster County students now get chickenpox

Intelligencer Journal - 1/16/2019

Just 4.3 percent of Lancaster County seventh-graders have ever had chickenpox, according to the latest report from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

For kindergartners, the percentage is only 0.9 percent.

Statewide, the rate is 1.3 percent of seventh-graders and 0.7 percent of kindergartners.

Chickenpox is also called varicella, and the vaccine against the very contagious viral disease was first licensed for U.S. use in 1995, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

Before then, the CDC said, almost everyone had chickenpox by adulthood.

While chickenpox is usually mild, the CDC said, it can be serious in infants under 12 months of age, adolescents, adults, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems.

The virus stays in the body and can cause a painful rash called shingles years later; the CDC reports that about 1 million people a year get shingles, mostly those over 50 years old.

9.5 percent of Lancaster County students are exempted from school immunization requirements

Pennsylvania requires students to get the chickenpox vaccine unless they can prove immunity to the disease.

The reports don’t show how many students have had other diseases they’re vaccinated against, which include whooping cough, measles and polio.

Download PDF New school immunization regs

Credit: HEATHER STAUFFER | Staff Writer