Academic institutions bring together all sorts of people so they are excellent starting points for outbreaks. U.S. colleges are making the effort to prevent the further spread of measles by pushing for stronger vaccine requirements in their students, highlighting the importance of being inoculated.
The University of California, for one, will be requiring all incoming students to not only be screened for tuberculosis but to be vaccinated as well for mumps, measles, rubella, meningococcus, chicken pox, whooping cough and tetanus beginning on the fall 2017 semester. The university's plan has been in the works for about a year now but was expedited due to pressing concerns about the measles outbreak currently sweeping across the country which started from Disneyland.
At the moment, the UC system only requires students to be inoculated against hepatitis B. The new vaccine plan will be rolled out over the course of three years, with the first phase focusing on creating awareness among university students about the requirement. All fall 2015 incoming students should receive a notification outlining the recommended vaccines.
The vaccine plan sets up a baseline for all UC schools to follow but doesn't hinder individual campuses from setting their own inoculation standards for their students or choosing to implement the plan sooner. It may also be extended to students already enrolled in the university and may include additional vaccines in the future. Vaccines already recommended for preventative care include inoculations for pneumococcal pneumonia, polio, influenza, HPV and hepatitis A.
To aid in tracking vaccinations in the student body, the university will be rolling out an electronic medical record platform, which all fall 2016 incoming students will be expected to use. Starting the fall 2017 semester, all students who failed to meet the vaccination requirements set will not be allowed to complete their registration.
Since the vaccine plan has a three-year roll-out schedule, it is expected that all students will have been fully aware of the required vaccines by the time it becomes mandatory. Still, the university will allow exemptions due to religious or medical purposes, although details about how requests will be handled have not been finalized.
In California alone, 103 individuals have been reported to have measles, many linked to the outbreak that started from Disneyland in December 2014. The disease has been officially eradicated from the United States in 2000 so the current outbreak is caused by a person acquiring the infection from overseas and bringing it into the country.
