Students in Douglas County may start the next school year with an incomplete in health.

For the second year in a row, students in Kansas will be admitted to school without having up-to-date vaccination records. The state is waiving the requirements because of the vaccination shortage plaguing the nation.

Gladys Reliford, left, holds her son Mekell McKinsey, 5 months, before getting his 6-month round of immunizations from Linda Cowles, registered nurse, at the Douglas County Health Department Clinic. Because of a shortage of tetanus and other vaccines, the state will waive its requirements that schoolchildren have up-to-date vaccine records.

Students heading to school this fall will most likely go without their tetanus-diphtheria or “booster” shot, the last in a series of shots usually given to children between ages 11 and 14. The low supply is being reserved for “wound” treatment for those seeking medical attention after an injury.

Local health officials said the shortage was a manageable one.

“Tetanus is only a threat when injuries occur, and we can take care of those incidents,” said Elaine Houston, immunization director at Douglas County Health Department. “Diphtheria is a disease that doesn’t occur in the U.S. Occasionally we may have an imported case, but it’s not a high-incidence disease.”

The shortage was felt first last summer when major manufacturers stopped making the vaccination and regulations slowed down the process. Houston said manufacturers dropped out of the system with no warning, and it takes a year to grow the vaccine.

But Houston said the shortage should be ending soon. Physicians can begin ordering the booster doses again with some expectation the orders will be met, she said.

“It doesn’t mean they’ll receive it in a timely fashion, but it’s a good sign,” she said.

	M-M-R shotsThe measles-mumps-rubella vaccination can be obtained at the Douglas County Health Department. Call 843-0721 for more information.

The Lawrence school district is keeping track of the students who enter school without completed immunization records. Katy Buck, the district’s nursing supervisor, said a great number of junior high or high school students would be short on the vaccination. The school district was first informed of the waived regulations when Kansas Department of Health and Environment contacted them before the school year last fall and again this spring.

“Once the shortage is relieved and the supply is there, we will contact parents and say their child need a tetanus” shot, Buck said.

Buck said she was more concerned with the spot shortages of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination for young children. Buck said she had been informed by local physician’s offices that they were running low. But, she said, the Douglas County Health Department does have a supply, and she encouraged parents with children needing the MMR shot to seek the vaccine there.

Even though the state has waived the vaccination requirements, Buck said those who can obtain the MMR shot should.

“With students coming from other countries, the point is that other diseases can come to us,” Buck said. “It’s our duty to protect the children in our school system.”