The prevalence of ham in West Texas was not just a chance.
Officials say the removal of the United States is easily prevented in the United States in the 21st, with more than 20 Texas counties spread across the County County because the health departments were starving for the funds needed to manage the vaccine program, officials say.
“We do not have any strong immunization programs that can boot a lot in the ground for years,” said Catherine Wells, the health director of the 90 minutes from the center of the outbreak.
The nationwide immunization programs have been left fragile by the Federal, the state and the local government year after the stagnant funds. Texas and elsewhere, it helped determine the stage for the outbreak of ham and enhanced its spread. Now the decline in Federal funds threatens to prevent more cases and efforts to prevent outbreaks.
Health departments arrived in cash to deal with Covid -1, but it was not enough to neglect the years. After all, confidence in the vaccines has decreased. Health officials warned that the situation worsened.
The recent cuts of the Trump administration have drawn billions of dollars of funds related to Covid -19 -$ 2 billion is ready for immunization programs for various diseases. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was monitoring these cuts, was led by an anti -vaccine movement. Although Kennedy says he wants his agency to prevent the outbreak of the future, he also refuses to convey a continuous and vigorous message that will help to do it – people remind it safe when they encourage their children to vaccinate against ham.
According to the analysis of the Associated Press, at the same time, the lawmakers of Texas and about two-thirds of the states have introduced the law this year, which will make it easier to get out of vaccines or otherwise hinders more people to get shots, according to an analysis of the Associated Press. Health officials say the infectious diseases further enhance the attempt to keep the Gulf.
More than 700 Ham cases have already exceeded last year’s total. Large majority – more than 540 – in Texas, but cases have come up in 23 states. Two children in Texas have died. A 6 -year -old girl in Gains County, the center of this outbreak, died in February, the first ham died in the United States in a decade. A 8 -year -old girl in the same city died earlier this month.
Children in the United States usually need to be vaccinated to school, which in the past confirmed that the rates of vaccination were high enough to prevent infectious diseases like ham. However, a growing number of parents are avoiding shots for their kids. The part of the children who are exempted from the vaccine requirement reached the height of all time, and only 92.7% of the kindergartners got the shots they needed in 2023.
To keep the vaccine rate high, vigilant, promise and money are needed.
Although the expression of Texas began in the Menonite community that was resistant against vaccines and incredible to official interference, it jumped in other places with quick vaccination rates. There are similar under-vaccinated pockets all over the country that can supply tindors that spread another outbreak.
Vice-Director of Texas Children Hospital Center in Houston Vaccine Development. “It’s like a hurricane on warm water in the Caribbean region,” Peter Hetz said. “The hurricane will continue to be accelerated as long as there is hot water. In this case the warm water is the endless kids” “
Lubak receives $ 254,000 immunization grants from the annual state that can be used for staff, promotion, advertising, education and other components of a vaccine program. As the population grows, it did not increase at least 15 years.
Wells said it was used enough to provide three nurses, administrative assistants, ads and even the Goods’ health fair. “Now it’s a nurse, a quarter nurse, a administrator’s assistant to a bit and basically nothing else covers.”
According to the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, Texas is the lowest in the state fund for public health, only $ 5 per person in 2021.
Vaccines are one of the most successful tools of public health arsenal, preventing weak illness and reduces expensive treatment care requirements. Childhood vaccines prevent 1 million deaths every year, according to the US Disease Control and Resistance Center, which says that the vaccine in the ham can save about 1 million lives by 20 years.
US immunization programs are funded by a variable mixture of federal, state and local money. The federal money is sent to each state, which decides how much to send to the local health departments.
The funds for stagnant immunization grants in Texas have made local health departments more difficult to continue their programs. For example, Lubbock’s Health Department’s vaccines do not mean paying for Facebook advertising to promote powerful communities to create beliefs.
In the Andrews County, which is the biggest expenditure on the gaines county, the largest expenditure on the immunization program. Health Director Gordon Matimo says everything has become more expensive, the grant has not changed. It shifts the burdens into the county governments. Some of the more money kicked in, nobody. Did her.
Problem: High vaccination rates are needed to protect people from outbreaks and germs do not stop at the county border.
Andrews County, Population 18,000, Walk-in Vaccine Clinic from Monday to Friday, but other West Texas communities do not do that. More than half of the people traveling from other counties to the clinic, Matimo said, with a lot of places and Gains county.
Some had to drive an hour or more. Matimo said they did so because they had problems getting shots in their home county due to long wait, lack of suppliers and other problems.
Matimo said, “They are unable to achieve it in the place where they live. … People are up here, here.” “Have an access problem.”
It probably makes it even more people will not get their shot.
Only 82% of the kindergartners were vaccinated against ham, mamps and rubella. Even in Andrews County, where at 97%, the vaccine rate is above 95% of the marginal to prevent the outbreak, it has dropped to two percent points since 2020.
Health departments depend on millions of Americans on their shots, depending on the two federal programs: vaccine for children and Article 7 of the Public Health Service Act. Vaccines for kids are mostly providing the actual vaccine. Category provides grants for 317 vaccines but run programs and get shots on weapons.
About half of the kids qualified for vaccines for children, a security-net program was created in response to the epidemic of 1989-1991 Ham, which made 55,000 people sick and killed 123. Sections sent to State and Local Health Department 317 pay for vaccines as well as nurses, promotion and advertising.
Health categories are generally used in tendemes and from the epidemic they are often allowed to supplement it with the Covid -19 funds.
From the salary to the vaccine, all the expenses have increased, as well as 57 funds are flat for years. A 2023 CDC report in Congress estimated that a broad 317 vaccine program requires $ 1.6 billion to fund the program perfectly. Last year, Congress approved less than half of: $ 682 million.
It compels inadequate state and local funds as well as hard choice. Dr. Kelly Moore, a resistant medicine expert, said he was confronted by the Tennessee’s immunization program from 20 to 25.
“What can we prevent and how many people can we protect? Every year every state has to make these decisions,” Moore says, now the Advocacy Group Immunize.RR.
He said a rural clinic may have to close, or the dusk and weekend time may be removed. “The clinics they have on their side becomes difficult to work and it is difficult for people to those communities, especially if they are working lives poor.”
At the same time, health officials say that more financing is needed to fight wrong information about vaccines and disbelief. According to the National Association of County and City Health officials, a 2021 survey, about 5% of the local health department, expressed the vaccine between patients or their parents in the last year, which was higher than 5% of 20 2017.
“If we do not invest in education, it becomes more difficult to control these diseases,” said Moore.
In the face of these headwinds, the Health Department of Kennedy canceled billions of dollars and local funds in March. After the case against 20 states, a judge now holds these cuts in the state but not in Texas or other states that have not joined the case.
However, the local health departments are not taking the opportunity and the services are about to be cut.
HHS says the money allotted through the Covid -1 initiative was cut because the epidemic was over. However, the CDC usually allowed this money to be used to earn public health infrastructure, including the immunization program.
Kennedy promised not to remove the vaccines before being confirmed as a health secretary. However, in Texas, the cuts of its categories mean that the state and local health departments deal with the outbreak of ham, losing $ 125 million for the federal fund related to vaccination. A spokesman for the Federal Health Department did not respond to any AP request for commenting.
Dallas County, where the outbreak started, was 350 miles away, more than 50 immunization clinics, including schools, had to be canceled, the Health Director of County. Philip Huang says.
The health department of Lubbak, near the center of the outbreak, said that there were seven tasks on the line because they were paid by this grant. Immunization is included in the damaged work.
In the New Mexico border, where outbreaks have spread, the state vaccine has lost grants that financing education.
It is not yet clear how the recently announced $ 2 billion cuts will affect the immunization program across the country, but details have begun to exit from several states.
For example, Washington State will lose about $ 20 million in vaccination-related funds. Officials were forced to break the mobile vaccine attempt at their “Care -e -Van”, which has been operated by July, more than 5 Covid -1 vaccine, 5 flu vaccine and 1,77 childhood vaccines. More than 100 vaccine clinics scheduled for more than 35 at school, including June, also had to cancel the state.
Connecticut Health Officer has guessed whether the cuts stand, they will lose $ 26 million for vaccination. Among other reduced, it means increasing the vaccine rate and increasing the confidence of vaccines, losing vaccine clinics and losing mobile propaganda in lower classes and discarding the 43 agreements with local health departments to stop the distribution of vaccine educational materials.
The federal government, including Minnesota, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, mentioned the loss of several state vaccine programs in 23 states.
In the meantime, due to the aging and strong anti-vaccine voices in addition to the vocalists, the doctors fear that the vaccine will spread the dilemma. And there will be ham and other viruses.
“The purpose of my whole life is to keep people from suffering and and and and and vaccines are a great way to do this,” said Moore. “But if we do not invest them to get their weapons, we can’t see their benefits.”
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Associated Press Health and Science Department has received the support of the Science and Educational Media Group and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of the Hughes Medical Institute. AP is the sole responsible for all content.