Delaware may mandate vaccines for ninth-graders

Delaware state officials are considering new vaccination mandates that would require students to receive shots before entering their freshman year of high school.

Rita Landgraf, Delaware’s health secretary, said this week her department is exploring whether to require vaccinations before ninth grade to help prevent the spread of pertussis (whooping cough) and meningitis.

Dr. Karyl Rattay, director of the Delaware Division of Public Health, said in a statement she’s been “gathering information and working with partners to access the pros and cons of mandating vaccinations for adolescents.”

Delaware regulations require students entering the state’s public school system to receive a suite of immunizations, including shots that protect against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; polio; and measles, mumps and rubella.

The new mandates would add immunization requirements for students entering ninth grade.

In a Feb. 19 paper, two Nemours doctors said Delaware should require a tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, or Tdap, booster shot and the meningococcal vaccine for high school entry to “prevent serious disease.”

Nemours operates the Alfred I. du Pont Hospital for Children in Rockland.

Delaware is one of just four states that doesn’t require the Tdap booster shot before high school, the report said. The state requires the meningitis vaccine before college, but not for adolescents.

Delaware’s vaccination rates are above the national average, but the new requirements would further boost community rates of vaccination and prevent the spread of disease, said Dr. Krishna White, chief of Nemours’ division of adolescent medicine.

“The diseases these vaccines prevent against are serious life-threatening illnesses,” White said.

Delaware already requires, starting in the 2013-2014 school year, health appraisals for incoming ninth-graders. Requiring vaccines that are currently only recommended could be a next step.

The timing of requiring new high school students to receive vaccinations has additional benefits, says Brian McDonough, chairman of the family medicine department at Saint Francis Healthcare.

“They’re about to begin high school,” McDonough said. “You can talk to them about all kinds of other issues: cigarettes, drugs, sports physicals, sexuality. It’s a real important time.”

Landgraf, a Cabinet secretary to Gov. Jack Markell, said her office is working with education officials to determine ways students could access the vaccines. It’s a careful balance, Landgraf said, to ensure that students don’t drop out of school because they do not have required shots.

“We don’t want the unintended consequence of students then not being able to get an education,” Landgraf said.

Contact Jonathan Starkey at (302) 98-6756, on Twitter @jwstarkey or at jstarkey@delawareonline.com.