The state program that provides free and low-cost vaccines and related services to children and their families has been awarded $1,396,000 from the federal Department of Health and Human Services. But the state’s leading public health official said Thursday that federal funding for children’s vaccines fails to keep pace with increasing costs.

The Maine immunization program provides vaccines and immunization education for children and their families throughout the state. It also tracks vaccine-preventable diseases, helps control outbreaks and provides support to community health care providers. The program, administered through the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, is heavily dependent on federal DHHS funding, which is awarded annually.

Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine said in a joint statement Thursday that “prevention is the key to combating disease, which is why our children need to have access to the immunizations and vaccinations that will keep them healthy. We need to continue our investment in clinical research so that chronic diseases will be a thing of the past. [This] funding ensures that Maine’s best and brightest will be at the forefront of the effort to unlock the advances that will cure our most degenerative illnesses.”

Last week, Democratic 1st District Rep. Tom Allen said the funds “are vital to fulfilling Maine’s commitment to fully protect Maine children from vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Reached Thursday for comment, Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said federal funding traditionally has provided vaccines for low-income children, but that recent funding has been eroded.

“Over the last several years, federal vaccine funding has been reduced relative to the increased costs of new and improved vaccines,” Mills said.

For example, she said, it is more costly to produce children’s vaccines that do not contain thimerosal, a preservative that has been linked by some groups to increased rates of autism. Although a clear connection has not been established, many consumers and health officials, including the Maine vaccine program, have switched to thimerosal-free formulations for children.