Cases of chickenpox have been confirmed in Ottawa County.
Officials with the Ottawa County Department of Public Health say the cases were at Kids First in Jenison Public School and parents have now been notified.
According to the health department if your child has not been immunized and you cannot provide a verification of a previous diagnosis of chickenpox by a health care provider, your child will be excluded from school for 21 days after onset of the last confirmed case.
“We understand how trying this can be for families. During a conversation with one of the parents impacted by this, we talked about the vaccination waiver they signed and how it included a warning that 21 or more days of school could be missed if a case of a vaccine preventable disease was suspected in their child’s school,” said Health Officer Lisa Stefanovsky.
Chickenpox is a very contagious disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus. The virus spreads easily from infected people to others who have never had the disease or been vaccinated. The health department says the best way to prevent chickenpox is to get the chickenpox vaccine.
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