About 100 Anderson Co. students out of school until they get hepatitis A vaccine; state sees ‘overall good compliance’ in Ky.

Nearly 100 students had to stay home from school in Anderson County this week because they were not compliant with the state’s new hepatitis A vaccination requirement, Ben Carlson reports for The Anderson News.

Since August 2017, Anderson County has had seven reported cases of the highly contagious liver disease, according to a weekly Department of Public Health report. One of them was a student at Anderson County High School.

Carlson reports that the health department said that as of Tuesday, Sept. 11, the high school and Anderson County Middle School had the highest number of non-compliant students, with 48 and 35, respectively, and the rest scattered in elementary schools and an early-childhood center.

County Health Director Tim Wright told Carson that there was no reason for students to have shown up to school in early August without being in compliance. “We started advertising this in July of 2017,” he said. “The requirement was for August of 2018, so we advertised it for 13 months.”

Lexington’s WKYT-TV reported on Sept. 6 that School Supt. Sheila Mitchell said students and their families had been well informed about the new requirement and the Sept. 7 deadline, adding that they had worked closely with the the Anderson County Health Department and Cumberland Family Medical to provide two clinic days at school for all students to get vaccinated or seek exemptions.

Wright told Carson he was “disappointed” that schools let non-compliant students in on Monday, Sept. 10, even though they had been told not to come if they hadn’t been vaccinated for hepatitis A. He was also frustrated that the school district still couldn’t tell him how many of the 350 people who could have been exposed to the student who tested positive for the disease had had their vaccine.

Carson reports that Supt. Mittchell did not respond when asked why non-compliant students were allowed to attend on Monday, nor could she answer why the school’s Cumberland Family Medical nurse left Monday in the middle of sorting through which students remained non-compliant. Cumberland Family Medical also refused to comment on why the nurse left.

Despite his many frustrations, Wright told Carson: “The positive thing is, we don’t have any more confirmed cases. Hopefully we won’t have an outbreak but, as of today, those not in compliance are not in school.”

State Public Health Commissioner Dr. Jeffrey Howard told Kentucky Health News in an e-mail that the state health department has received “sparse reports” from across the state of only a few students being held out of school for not being vaccinated for hepatitis A.

“However, when our team investigated the case of a student with HAV [hepatitis A] in Anderson County, they discovered many students were not in compliance with vaccination recommendations,” he said. “Having 100 students without the appropriate vaccination at a single school [district] is an extreme exception to what has been overall good compliance.”