Two vaccines used to prevent childhood diseases are no longer in short supply, the government announced Thursday.

Shortages of the vaccines -- one to protect against measles, mumps and rubella, and a second to fight diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough -- had health officials in the San Joaquin Valley and throughout the nation keeping a close eye on their supplies earlier this year.

But now there is enough of the two vaccines to go around, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a letter to doctors. The CDC urged health agencies throughout the nation to resume normal vaccine schedules for their patients.

In Stanislaus County, public health nurses never ran out of or stopped giving the two vaccines, commonly called MMR and DTaP, said Rose Ann Peterson, a supervising nurse with the county's Health Services Agency.

The agency did, however, ask the parents of about 200 children to return another time for a fourth dose of DTaP, Peterson said. The children are 15 to 18 months old, she said, and the fourth dose of the vaccine is not needed until children are about to enter kindergarten.

The Health Services Agency did run out of chickenpox vaccine earlier this year, but now has an adequate supply of the shots. There is still a nationwide shortage of chickenpox vaccine, the CDC reported.

Even though the government announced the end of the shortage of MMR and DTaP vaccines, the CDC and the local Health Services Agency are recommending that children come in to make up any shots they missed. The CDC fears a run on the vaccines.

Parents are supposed to get MMR shots for their children at age 12 to 15 months and again at 4 to 6 years. During the shortage, the CDC recommended postponing the second shot.

The DTaP vaccine is usually given to children in five doses over their first four to six years. The CDC had suggested that parents put off the fourth and fifth doses while supplies were low.

Health officials never recommended that the shots be put off altogether, because the diseases they fight strike particularly hard against infants and toddlers.

Three vaccines against DTaP are produced in the United States: Tripedia and Daptacel, marketed by Aventis Pasteur, and Infanrix, made by GlaxoSmithKline. Daptacel won federal approval just two months ago, helping to ease the shortage.

Merck is the only U.S. maker of the MMR vaccine.

Bee staff writer Kerry McCray contributed to this report.

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.