and finally tonight it may be hard to accept but summer is winding down and back to- School preparations are ramping up so is the return of all those seasonal illnesses like flu strap and covid Campton County launched a mobile clinic to make it easier for families to keep their kids up toate on vaccines this year and as Raven Santana reports there's no appointment or affiliation with a primary care doctor needed I want my child healthy so it's good if your kids GNA be vaccinated on time they can have a better immune to find with the disease Kum gafar says getting her four-year-old daughter vaccinated was on the top of her back to school to-do list which is why she headed to this mobile van in Camden County offering free vaccinations for uninsured children we're offering the taap and daap vacine MMR polio and minin CCO vaccines a lot of the people that we're seeing at our clinics don't have um insurance so they aren't able to go to their regular pediatricians and another problem is that some pediatricians um cannot offer the vaccines in their offices Patricia Elliot is a nurse with the Camden County Department of Health which partnered with other healthc care providers to offer a variety of required vaccinations in an effort to prepare families for the upcoming school year Elliot and fellow nurse Anna Rodriguez say the vaccine clinics are in response to really low vaccine rates among children it was prompted from vaccine School audits that uh the county has um done within the last 2 years and we noticed there were a lot of children um not sure if it was due to the pandemic but post pandemic they were missing vaccines that are mandatory here in the state of New Jersey so we decided to come up with this mobile clinic where we could go to their backyards basically and meet parents where they're always at right dropping kids off either at school programs um at a summer camp um and that's how we came up with our locations and according to State epidemiologist Tina tan vaccination rates for school aged children have not yet rebounded to pre pandemic rates unfortunately during the pandemic we did see a dip in vaccine coverage um overall um among our school age populations uh and fortunately we are starting to see a rebound although it's a little uneven so we definitely still have room for improvement in terms of getting uh vaccinated um uh coverage uh much higher and back to our pre-pandemic levels it is really critical for us to get those immunization coverage rates um much higher because we constantly face issues related to vaccine preventable diseases um from a worldwide um basis we saw over this past spring that there was an uptick in measles cases globally and um we have a lot of Travelers um from New Jersey who go into areas where measles is a situation and we are very concerned about bringing back measles into areas particularly particularly when people are un or undervaccinated in addition to the mobile van the State Department of Health created hot shots for Tots Campaign which showcases child care and preschool facilities who can earn award levels for promoting best vaccination practices Governor Murphy also recently marked August as immunization Awareness Month still even with all the initiatives Rodriguez says barriers exist which is why she believes meeting the community where they are will close the gaps it can be um the parents' work schedule um sometimes there's fear there's kids who have anxiety or parents who um have questions doubts about the vaccine whether they're effective or not um so those could be barriers for children to be up today Rodriguez encourages any parents who are hesitant about giving their children the required vaccinations to contct their pediatrician and or the Department of Health in the meantime with school starting in just a few weeks she and Elliot now hope to make the mobile van an annual back to school event for NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana support for the medical report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey an independent lensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association