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December 23, 2002
INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Mexico Bests U.S. in Vaccinations"
Houston Chronicle (www.chron.com) (12/22/02) P. A1; Hegstrom, Edward
The Mexican city of Monterrey divides its poor neighborhoods into sections and assigns a nurse in each area to make sure that all the children are vaccinated on time--no matter what the parents think. This approach has achieved a 98 percent coverage rate for children ages one to four years in Monterrey, compared to about 71 percent of two-year-olds in Houston. Overall, 96 percent of children between the ages of one and four years in Mexico are fully vaccinated, while the rate for two-year-olds in the United States is 79 percent. This success, in Mexico and other area nations, has stopped the epidemics that used to swing back and forth between the two nations. Both Monterrey and Houston, Tex., saw a resurgence in measles over 10 years ago and tried to hit a 100 percent vaccination rate in response; but Houston still has no coordinated vaccine registry, and Monterrey has nearly met its goal. The Mexican government created its National Immunization Program, a central authority that oversees the thrice-annual immunization campaigns, while public health nurses in Monterrey track babies before they are even born, and the newborns get National Vaccination Records that are required for passports, identification papers, school entry, and other things. Houston is struggling with competing registries and some parents who consider registries an invasion of privacy.
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