National Immunization Awareness Month reminds us to make sure student vaccines are up to date
As students prepare to go back to school, there’s no better time than National Immunization Awareness Month to remind folks that it’s time to make sure their children are caught up on their immunizations.
Despite federal revisions to the childhood immunization schedule, Kentucky has not changed its school vaccine requirements. Kentucky requires every student to be current on immunizations as they enter kindergarten and sixth grade.
In a frequently asked questions document about the state’s immunization schedule for students, the Kentucky Department for Public Health notes that the federal government recommendations “are only advisory and do not follow the long-established steps that are critical to setting vaccine policy.”
Students entering kindergarten are required to have the combined DTaP vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine; and vaccines for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio and chicken pox.
Students entering sixth grade are required to have all of the immunizations that were required to enter kindergarten, as well as a TDAP booster, a meningitis vaccine, and a second chicken-pox vaccine.
Kentucky law does allow for certain religious and medical exemptions.