COME 2020, Malaysia will have comprehensive data on the vaccination record of pupils compiled jointly by the Education and Health Ministries. It would then be possible for the authorities to identify the parents or guardians of schoolchildren who have not faithfully followed the stipulated vaccination requirements.
On a more immediate timeline, the Health Ministry will begin immunisation screening at all primary schools beginning next month. The aim is to weed out those who have not gone through the complete vaccination regime.
The move is no doubt timely, and schools must comply, even if there are parents or guardians who are anti-vaccine. With the records, the Health Ministry can cross check with the Education Ministry on unvaccinated children, whose parents will be advised to have them vaccinated.
The diphtheria scare is effectively pushing the government to ensure that preventive measures are adhered to religiously so that infectious diseases can be eliminated permanently from the country. Nevertheless, one is uncertain what action will be taken against intransigent parents who refuse to follow the guidelines. The minister had said they would be counselled. But, if they still refuse after counselling, what next?
Will the children be expelled from school? Can the authorities force parents or guardians to vaccinate their children to protect them?
Will the parents or guardians be prosecuted? It is more than a matter
of the children involved here. It is because they pose a threat to other children and the wider public.
The next step, then, would be to make the required vaccinations mandatory, given its importance to public health. After all, every child born must be registered and can, therefore, be easily monitored for vaccinations. This should be the benchmark for a country aspiring to be fully developed in four years.
Anti-vaccine parents exacerbate the problem because it is through their children that these infectious diseases enter the general population. Nevertheless, blaming them does not address the root cause of the problem — why and how these diseases have returned to the country now that foreign workers go through stringent screening?
Parents must feel a sense of obligation and put fallacies and prejudices aside for the greater good. The argument that they are risking the lives of their children obviously does not cut any ice, or they would already have vaccinated them. It is then necessary to appeal to their sense of social responsibility, and when recalcitrance persists, benign tolerance must end. Surely the well-being of the majority population must be taken into consideration? If the evidence that the vaccines are safe is overwhelming, and generations have lived to tell this tale, then why can’t vaccination be made mandatory? Is the reluctance caused by a fear of trampling on the individual’s freedom of choice? Like smokers who leave secondary smokers with little choice but great risks, anti-vaccination parents do the same. Why not attach vaccination records with birth certificates. Enrolments in schools are approved only when the document is complete.
Is this harsh? Yes. Is it necessary? Very much so.