Kansas health officials are implementing new school vaccination requirements to help protect the public from disease outbreaks, reports CBS affiliate KWCH.
Effective Aug. 2, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment will require public school students entering kindergarten and first grade to receive the hepatitis A vaccine. Students entering seventh grade and 11th grade will be required to get the meningococcal ACWY vaccine.
"Both Meningitis and Hepatitis A illnesses are severe and preventable, and the safety profile of the vaccines is well-recognized," KDHE secretary Lee Norman, MD, said in a statement cited by KWCH. "As an agency charged to establish policies that protect and improve the lives of Kansans, we felt the addition of the two vaccines was essential for the health and safety of our state."
The state still accepts medical and religious exemptions to vaccination laws.