A nurse readies an MMR vaccine at Sanford Children’s Hospital in Sioux Falls. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)
The South Dakota Department of Health administered no immunizations at seven of the 11 special measles vaccine clinics it publicly announced recently, and a total of 14 vaccinations were administered at the other four clinics.
The department announced the locations, dates and times of the special clinics in a news release on June 18, and announced an amended schedule in another news release on June 20.
Of the 11 cities where clinics were scheduled, nine clinics were single days and two were multiple days.
The news releases did not say whether the vaccinations were free. The department has since told South Dakota Searchlight via email, “Vaccines are provided at no cost when insurance isn’t an option, with eligibility assessed to ensure everyone can get vaccinated without barriers.”
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}})}();
When the department announced the schedule for the special clinics, the state had detected four measles cases since the beginning of the year. That number has since risen to 12, including one hospitalization. Ten of the cases are unvaccinated people. The vaccination status of the other two is unknown.
Prior to last year, the state hadn’t experienced a confirmed measles case since 2015. Measles vaccination rates among South Dakota schoolchildren have fallen since then from 96% to 90%.
Similar trends in some other states have contributed to the worst measles year in the United States since 1990. This year’s nationwide numbers now stand at 1,333 cases and three deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It took South Dakota Searchlight three weeks to obtain the results of the special vaccination clinics from the state Department of Health. The department, which declined multiple requests for an interview and communicated only by email, initially refused to provide the numbers.
“In certain locations, the number of clients served is small enough that confidentiality laws prevent us from releasing those specific vaccine counts,” the department wrote.
The department did not respond to Searchlight’s request for a specific law citation supporting its position.
After Searchlight submitted another request for the information, this time through a state records request portal instead of by email, the department responded with data.
“We’ve discussed this request in detail internally and with our legal counsel,” the department wrote. “We believe we can share these numbers as long as they are provided simply as counts of people vaccinated, with no additional patient information.”
Searchlight had never asked for additional patient information.
The data provided by the department included additional cities and days beyond those announced in the June news releases. Searchlight had to perform its own analysis of the data to determine the results of only the announced clinics.
The department sent a written response when asked to explain the inclusion of the extra data, and pointed to a webpage containing information on measles vaccination clinics.
“First, some clinics took place before the release was distributed,” the department wrote. “Second, clinic schedules and locations continued to shift after the release was issued. While our team worked diligently to keep the website as current as possible, the details were changing daily.”
The department also said it offers immunizations daily at its public health nursing offices around the state. There have been 6,092 measles vaccinations so far this year in South Dakota, the department said, compared to 4,868 at the same time last year.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.