Over 95 percent of children attending public and private schools in Maine have received the required immunizations, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Tuesday.
The finding comes from the Maine Annual School Assessment Survey and marks the first time Maine has exceeded the level needed for “herd immunity” since reporting started in 2011, according to the Maine CDC.
Herd immunity is when most of a population develops immunity from infectious diseases either through vaccination or having been previously infected.
Maine law requires preK-12 students enrolled in designated public or private school or special education program to show proof of immunization or documented immunity to: diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus (DTaP), polio, measles/mumps/rubella (MMR), varicella, and meningococcal meningitis.
Among Maine children in the survey, which included students in kindergarten and grades 7 and 12, at least 95 percent were vaccinated against all of those illnesses.
Jeanne Lambrew, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Service, called achieving herd immunity “a pivotal success for Maine.”
“Maine’s childhood vaccination rates are among the best in the nation, protecting not only our school-aged children but Maine families, communities and our state as a whole,” Lambrew said.
The Maine CDC attributed the success to the 2021 implementation of the law removing religious and philosophical vaccination exemptions.
From the 2018 to 2021, Maine was among the five states in the U.S. reporting the highest percentage of non-medical exemptions, according to the CDC. That flipped in the 2022-23 school year, when Maine reported the lowest percentage of non-medical exemptions in the country.
(MIP) also collects coverage and exemption data for seventh grade students and twelfth grade students. This information is collected through an annual immunization assessment survey of all State of Maine elementary, middle, and high schools.
