Mississippi, once the leader in childhood vaccination rates, sees continuing rise in exemptions

Mississippi’s kindergarten vaccination rates, once the highest in the nation, dipped last year as the number of approved religious vaccine exemptions rose. The state’s childhood vaccination rates remain high, but public health officials are bracing themselves for possible outbreaks of measles and pertussis among young children as cases of vaccine-preventable diseases have risen across the nation. There have been over 1,000 measles cases reported in the U.S. this year alone