Capistrano District Turns Away 9 Who Lacked Shots : Health: The seventh-graders could not show they had begun the vaccination series for hepatitis B.

Administrators in Capistrano Unified School District turned away nine seventh-graders Thursday because the students lacked hepatitis B vaccines required under a new law.

“Some kids went out and got their shots and came back later,” said Julie Jennings, the district’s spokeswoman. “We anticipate that the others got their shots and will be bringing in their verification” today.

Two weeks before school started, only about 2,000 of the district’s 3,200 seventh-graders had notified school officials that they were immunized, raising concerns that students might be turned away en masse.

A state law that took effect in July mandates that students cannot enter, advance to or repeat seventh grade if they have not started the three-dose hepatitis B series, administered over four to six months.

The vaccine has been available since 1982, and for two years all California kindergartners have been required to show proof of hepatitis vaccination before starting classes.

Hepatitis B is an infection of the liver caused by a virus present in the blood and other bodily fluids. The disease infects an estimated 140,000 to 320,000 U.S. residents a year, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

About 5,000 to 6,000 people die yearly as a result of hepatitis-related liver diseases.

The new law is intended to catch older children who missed earlier inoculations and are approaching the years when the disease is often contracted.

As with other school immunization requirements, parents may exempt their children from the shots for medical reasons or personal beliefs.

In Capistrano Unified, about 75 families cited religious reasons in choosing not to have children immunized.