A CHICKENPOX OUTBREAK at a private school in North Carolina is the state's worst in more than two decades.

As of Friday, 36 children at the Asheville Waldorf School in Asheville, North Carolina, had contracted the disease, according to the Asheville Citizen Times. The school, which serves children in nursery school though sixth grade, has one of the highest vaccination exemption rates in the state.

The outbreak is the worst in the state since the chickenpox vaccine became available in 1995, the Citizen Times reports.

Chickenpox is a "very contagious disease" that can cause a fever and hundreds of itchy blisters. It can be serious for babies, adults and people with weakened immune systems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. North Carolina requires that children entering school have the two-dose varicella vaccine, commonly known as the chickenpox vaccine, but allows exemptions for medical or religious reasons.

Of Asheville Waldorf's 152 students, 110 have not received the chickenpox vaccine, according to the Citizen Times. During the 2017-2018 school year, 19 of 28 kindergarteners at the school, which was formerly called the Azalea Mountain School, had religious exemptions to at least one required vaccine, according to data released by the state's Department of Human Health Services and obtained by the area's local public radio station .

An increasing number of parents nationwide are electing not to give their young children some or all of the recommended vaccinations, fueled at least in part by scientifically disproven claims that vaccines cause other health problems and put children at risk of autism. According to the Washington Post, the percentage of children under two who don't receive any vaccines has quadrupled since 2001, though the number is relatively low.

In Asheville, public health officials are urging parents to vaccinate their children.

"Two doses of varicella vaccine can offer significant protection against childhood chickenpox and shingles as an adult," Dr. Jennifer Mullendore, the county's medical director, said in a statement. "When we see high numbers of unimmunized children and adults, we know that an illness like chickenpox can spread easily throughout the community – into our playgrounds, grocery stores, and sports teams."

Before the two-dose chickenpox vaccine became available in 1995, an average of 4 million people contracted chickenpox each year. Of those, up to 13,000 were hospitalized and 100 to 150 died each year, the CDC reports.

Chickenpox vaccination rates currently hover around 90 percent for young children, and more than 3.5 million cases of chickenpox and 100 deaths are prevented each year by the vaccine, according to the CDC.

**Source:** https://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2018-11-19/chickenpox-outbreak-in-north-carolina-is-states-worst-in-two-decades