More than 4,000 children in Taipei have yet to receive the three types of vaccination required before starting elementary school, despite schools opening in less than a month, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday.
As of Tuesday last week, among 24,855 children in the city who are to begin first grade next month, 4,054, or 16.3 percent, had yet to complete the required vaccinations, National Immunization Information System data showed.
The vaccinations are the second dose of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, the first dose of live attenuated Japanese encephalitis chimeric vaccine, and a single dose of tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis and polio vaccine (Tdap-IPV).
Photo: Tsai Si-pei, Taipei Times
Vaccination rates for the target group of children were 92.5 percent for the MMR vaccine, 90.1 percent for Japanese encephalitis vaccine and 87.9 percent for Tdap-IPV, while 83.7 percent had received all three vaccines, the department said.
Getting vaccinated is the best way to prevent cluster outbreaks in schools, it said, adding that parents should have their children who are starting first grade vaccinated before Aug. 30, the first day of school.
They should also submit a copy of their child’s time schedule and vaccination record to the school, the department added.
In related news, there had been 42 imported dengue fever cases in Taipei as of Aug. 7, which is higher than the three-yearly average of 32 cases for the same period, the department said.
Most of the cases were imported from Southeast Asia; of the total, nine were infected in Indonesia, eight in the Philippines, and five each in Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore, as well as sporadic cases from other nations, it said.
As people with mild symptoms of dengue fever had been misdiagnosed with influenza, people who experience fever, headache, pain in the back of the eyes, muscle and joint pain, and rashes should seek medical attention at one of the 91 medical centers in the city that have rapid dengue fever diagnostic tests and tell medical staff about their recent travel history, the department said.
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