All vaccines under national programme to be must for TN kids

CHENNAI: School children in Tamil Nadu will from this academic year be required to be vaccinated unless a medical reason prevents them. A notification to make all vaccines under the national immunisation programme mandatory for schoolchildren in Tamil Nadu is being prepared and will be out by July.

This will end exemptions for cultural or personal reasons and beliefs pushed by anti-vaccine lobbyists, said director of public health Dr K Kolandaisamy.

The government order will invoke provisions of the Madras Public Health, Act, 1939, to make it mandatory for students of all private and public schools to submit annual vaccine records to the directorate of public health. “Children not vaccinated should not be allowed to attend school. Else, the health department will have powers to declare the school an unsafe zone,” he said.

All diseases in the immunisation programme will be included in the list of mandatory vaccines. When several parents refused to permit children to take measles-rubella vaccine in school during a mass vaccination drive, health minister C Vijaya Baskar had said his department was working with the school education department to make all vaccines mandatory for students. “Invoking provisions under the act isn’t new. It was done when small pox vaccines were being pushed to eradicate the disease,” he said.

Earlier, people were scared of the disease but were unaware of the vaccine. “Today, they are aware of the vaccine but don’t see as many cases so there is no fear. There are many people campaigning against vaccination and we see it as a dangerous trend with no scientific evidence. Without the vaccine, outbreak can happen anytime and we want to prevent it,” he said.

Three years ago, a district level health survey by the Centre showing the number of children with full vaccination dipping from 81.8% in 2007-08 to 56.2% in 2012-13 and those who did not receive any vaccine rsing from 0.1% to 1.8% embarrassed TN. Last year, the National Family Health Survey showed the number of children with full vaccination had climbed to 73.3% in 2015-16. Health department officials say false messages propagated by the anti-vaccine lobby were stymying their efforts.

Some doctors, including paediatricians, have been saying the government should test vaccines among large populations before they are included in the vaccine protocol. Delhi-based paediatrician Jacob Puliyel, for instance, has called for a white paper on children deaths due to adverse vaccine reactions after pentavalent vaccines were introduced. “We are not against vaccines, but we want to ensure they are safe and effective,” he said.

A dedicated team of 770 doctors and an equal number of nurses will travel to schools and vaccinate children who have missed the schedule, health officials said.