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Jamaica School Principals Face Jail Terms If Students Not Properly Immunised

KINGSTON, Jamaica CMC – Jamaica health authorities are urging schools not to admit students who are not adequately immunized for their age, warning that principals also face the possibility of being prosecuted and given a jail sentence for breaching the regulation.

Programme Development Officer of the Family Health Services Unit at the Ministry, Dr. Yvonne Munroe, says the Immunization Regulations of 1986 is being enforced, in an effort to protect other children, and the community at large, from vaccine-preventable diseases.

The new school term starts on September 2 and the Ministry of Health official said the directive applies to all schools including nurseries, day-care and early childhood centres.

Dr. Munroe said that the English–speaking Caribbean has eradicated and eliminated many of the 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,” she said, while noting that this is preventable and unnecessary.

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

Jamaica has made several gains since the country first implemented the Expanded Programme of Immunization (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 newborn tetanus in 2001.

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

“Persons authorized to admit pupils to any school should not permit a child to continue attending any such school, unless a certificate of medical contradiction, unfitness for immunization, issued by the Health Department or by the child’s medical doctor, is produced,” she said.

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

She is appealing to principals to be vigilant in their admission efforts and adds that if they accept children who are inadequately immunized, they will become liable for prosecution in a Resident Magistrate’s Court, for a fine not exceeding J$500 (One Jamaica dollar = US$0.01 cents) or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 30 days.

She warned that the J$500 fine is applicable to every child and as an example,  if there are 20 students in the institution who are not adequately immunized, the school would be charged a total of J$10,000.00.

Dr. Munroe said the vaccine is being given to students free of charge at health centres across the country.

“If they go to their private doctors or paediatricians, they will have to pay for the vaccine, but if they go to the health centres, they don’t have to pay,” she said, noting that the Immunisation Regulations stipulate that it is the duty of all parents to ensure that their children are adequately immunised.

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