Recent headlines of reports from across the nation and beyond concerning the reappearance of measles due to a lack of vaccinations in recent years has everyone concerned and parents of school aged children are becoming increasingly concerned about the health and well being of their children in regards to this highly contagious disease.

A recent report made available to the Clinton County News indicates that the vaccination rate of children here who are kindergarten age is well above what is considered an acceptable percentage.

That information is according to Kentucky data analyzed by USA Today, in a survey of states that track vaccination rates and make them public. The Courier-Journal published the Kentucky figures in an online database.

That data, which reflects vaccination rates for the 2011-2012 school years, shows that Clinton County had a 96 percent rate of kindergarten students who had received the measle vaccination.

Depending on the actual status of the students’ vaccination certificates, that percentage could actually be higher.

According to the data, there were 142 kindergarten students enrolled in Clinton County schools during that 2011-12 school year, and of those, 137 had vaccination certificates on file.

The five students without proper vaccination certificates on file were all listed as “missing”, and in addition, it was pointed out that there can also be a delay in receiving proof of vaccination for various reasons, including a child having moved and transferred into the school system from another state.

None of the students who did not have proper vaccination certificates on file in Clinton County were listed as having medical or religious exemptions.

While Clinton County’s measles, mumps and rubella (MMR)vaccination rate was well above the acceptable rate at 96 percent, the counties surrounding us all listed even higher rates.

Cumberland County, with 92 kindergarten students, had only one student who had not been vaccinated for a rate of 99 percent. That student was listed in the data as having been granted a medical exemption.

Wayne County also had a 99 percent vaccination rate among its 260 kindergarten age students, with one missing, one medical exemption and two religious exemptions.

To our north, in Russell County, the best rate of 100 percent was shown among it’s 240 students involved in the collected data.

While Clinton County and the Kentucky counties that surround us all had acceptable vaccination percentages among kindergarten students, there were several Kentucky counties that did not reach that benchmark.

At least 14 Kentucky counties had measles vaccination rates below 90 percent in the 2011-12 school year.

The counties under 90 percent were Bath (89 percent), Boyle (83 percent), Bullitt (88 percent), Christian (89 percent), Harlan (88 percent), Jefferson (86 percent), Laurel (85 percent), Lawrence (88 percent), Lee (80 percent), Nelson (82 percent), Robertson (88 percent), Rowan (86 percent), Taylor (82 percent) and Webster (86 percent). Data from several counties was not available.

The statewide vaccination rate was 93 percent, pulled down by a rate of 86 percent in Jefferson County, the state’s most populous. The lowest rates were 80 percent in Lee County and 82 percent in Nelson and Taylor counties.

Jefferson County officials told the Courier-Journal that the county’s rate rose above 90 percent in the last two to three years. Bullitt County school-health coordinator Lesa Bodine told the Louisville newspaper that her data show 94.3 percent of the county’s kindergarten students “have been properly immunized,” The C-J’s Darla Carter reports. “However, she said there are some parents who choose not to immunize their children.

[Information for this article was provided by Kentucky Health News an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.]