Child Immunization Rates Are Improving in Oklahoma

Immunizations and vaccines work to guard the health of all Oklahomans. From birth to senior-citizen status, tiny organisms injected into the body help it protect itself.

No longer are smallpox feared by Oklahomans, and influenza shots crucial for elderly residents.

Ask Oklahoma’s state health commissioner, Dr. Mike Crutcher, about vaccinations and he’s quick to respond.

"Let there be no doubt. The risk of severe illness, complications and death from vaccine-preventable diseases is very real," he said. "Immunizations are absolutely essential for health protection."

In fact, Oklahoma’s childhood-immunization rates recently were recognized nationally as improving from 44th to 25th.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Immunization Survey, 80.4 percent of Oklahoma children ages 19 months through 35 months of age were fully immunized against 10 deadly and devastating diseases, including polio and hepatitis B.

Crutcher credits an increased emphasis for vaccination by state doctors’ offices.

Additional contributions have been made by child-care operators statewide, who work with parents to ensure that all children attending child care are up-to-date on their immunizations, Crutcher said.

"We are extremely pleased and proud to see an improved rate," Crutcher said. "When the rates were first measured in Oklahoma in 1993, only 65 percent of Oklahoma children were fully immunized. So we have increased substantially in the last 17 years."

The commissioner used this historical reference:

"Our grandparents and great grandparents grew up with diseases such as smallpox. … "We have come a long way in the advancement of public health initiatives that provide maximum protections for minimum costs."

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