With only a few days left before the new school year begins, the Ministry of Health is urging schools - including nurseries, daycare and early childhood centres - not to admit children who are inadequately immunised.

In an interview with JIS News Programme development officer, the Family Health Services Unit, Dr Yvonne Munroe, said the immunisation regulations of 1986 is being enforced in an effort to protect other children, and the community at large, from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Risk of infectious

She point out that the English-speaking Caribbean has eradicated and eliminated many diseases though programmes to enforce the proper immunisation practices for children and adults.

"Tourism and international travel can put Jamaica and Jamaicans at increased risk of infectious diseases, which may result in high costs that are associated with ill-health," Dr Munroe said, noting that this is preventable and unnecessary.

As a result, countries in the region, through individual programmes, aim to protect these achievements and lives of citizens, as the diseases are still found in many countries.

Jamaica has made gains since the country first implemented the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) in 1977, with the last case of polio identified in 1982; the last case of locally transmitted measles in 1991; diphtheria in 1995; rubella (German measles) in 2000 and the last case of new-born tetanus in 2001.

Dr Munroe said all children, especially under age of seven, should be adequately immunised before entry to school and should, ideally, have been immunised within the first year of birth, or soon after, with boosters given at intervals.

Immunisation Regulations

"Persons authorised to admit pupils to any school should not permit a child to continue attending any such school, unless a Certificate of Medical Contra-Indication, Unfitness for Immunisation, issued by the Health Department, or by the child's medical doctor, is produced," she told JIS News.

Citing the importance of the initiative, Dr Munroe noted that parents and principals must be cognisant of penalties that apply to those who are not found to be in compliance with the Immunisation Regulations of 1986, drafted under the Public Health Act of 1974.

She has appealed to principals to be vigilant in their admission efforts. Dr Munroe said if they accept children who are inadequately immunised, they would become liable for prosecution, in a Resident Magistrate's court, for a fine not exceeding $500 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 30 days.

Explaining further, she said the $500 fine is per child. So, if there are 20 students in the institution not adequately immunised, the school would be charged $10,000.

Immunisation is one the most cost-effective interventions in health, Dr Munroe add highlighting that children must be vaccinated against preventable disease, such as small pox, pretties, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella and congenital rubella syndrome, haemophilia influenza type B, hepatitis B, and tuberculosis.