Amber Manos Villella worries her daughter won’t always be protected because she cannot get all her vaccinations.

Her child was among more than 2,000 school-age children in the state medically exempt from vaccines last year. Willow, 8, has juvenile idiopathic arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease that causes pain in the joints and limits mobility. Her treatment includes taking immunosuppressant drugs, which limits her accessibility to vaccines.

Willow “is not allowed to have an updated MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] or the chickenpox vaccine because those are live viruses,” said Manos Villella, of Reserve. “She relies on others being vaccinated for these.”

Vaccination rates among children in several southwestern Pennsylvania counties are below herd immunity — the minimum percentage of p

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