By: MDA Staff Writer | September 9, 2026
Mississippi – As students settle into another school year, newly available state health data shows kindergarten vaccination compliance remains high throughout the Mississippi Delta.
The Mississippi State Department of Health reports that every Delta-region county included in its 2025-26 school immunization report recorded a kindergarten compliance rate above 95 percent.
Bolivar and Coahoma counties each reported 98.6 percent compliance, while Leflore and Washington counties each reached 98.7 percent. Sunflower County recorded 99.1 percent, Quitman County 98.5 percent and Tunica County 96.7 percent.
Holmes and the combined Sharkey/Issaquena reporting area reached 100 percent.
The health department identifies 95 percent as an important population-immunity benchmark for limiting the spread of diseases such as measles. Every county in the state’s Delta region exceeded that threshold during the reporting period.
The numbers are particularly relevant as children return to classrooms, where close contact can make infectious diseases easier to spread.
State data also shows relatively few medical exemptions throughout the Delta. The Department of Health reported fewer than five medical exemptions among kindergarten-through-12th-grade students in each Delta county during the 2025-26 school year.
Vaccination requirements remain one of the tools Mississippi uses to reduce outbreaks of preventable illnesses in schools.
For Delta families, the latest figures indicate that vaccination compliance remains well above the state’s identified population-immunity benchmark across the region.
Source: Mississippi School Immunization Compliance Report