According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention one in 20 children who contract measles will also get pneumonia; one in 1,000 may develop encephalitis that could lead to deafness and mental retardation; and for one or two in 1,000, the disease could be fatal.
Thursday, WBEZ contacted schools who, according to the ISBE vaccination site, self-reported measles vaccination rates as low as 27 percent. The schools claimed that the site was showing inaccurate information.
Vanover attributes the inaccuracies to its self-reported nature and an inability to update it. After a November 17 deadline each year, he says, “the data becomes locked in for reporting purposes and we don’t have any opportunity to go back and correct it.”
He said that he “would anticipate that the numbers would go up after that” deadline. But, under the current system, it is impossible to say.
Monica Eng is a WBEZ producer and co-host of the Chewing The Fat podcast. Follow her at @monicaeng or write to her at meng@wbez.org.
WBEZ web producer Chris Hagan contributed to this story.
Article Appeared @http://www.wbez.org/news/illinois-officials-not-enforcing-rules-school-vaccinations-111513