Public Immunization

The aim for immunization is to avoid the spread of any communicable diseases. Coming from a country where high value is placed on the immunization of infants. As a newborn, I was immunized and vaccinated my mother still has the card after 20+ years to prove that I was immunized as well as bearing a permanent scar on my right upper shoulder.  My aunt who in 2004-07 was the Chief Education Officer was quoted in an article stating that it was mandatory for children to be immunized prior to being admitted into schools.  In Jamaica the policy is that children who have not been immunized cannot be admitted into government-funded schools, as for private schools they have the option to not have the rule. However, if a principal decided to accept a student who is not immunized they can face legal charges. In Jamaican, under law, full immunization is a fundamental right of the child so; parents can be fined or imprisoned for failing to immunize their children.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has lauded the Jamaica Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) as one of the best in the world. In 2010, Jamaica achieved a 100% coverage for tuberculosis, 92% for polio, whooping cough, and hepatitis b and 88% for measles, mumps and rubella. The Expanded Programme on Immunization established in Jamaica in September 1977 and has contributed greatly to the reduction in infant and child mortality. Prior to its introduction, the infant mortality rate from infectious diseases including vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, polio, neonatal tetanus, tuberculosis, diphtheria, bacterial meningitis and pneumonia was very high at some 51 per 1000 live births in the 1960s and 32 per 1000 live births in the 1970s. The infant mortality rate now stands at 21 per 1000 live births.

I am amazed at my small country in many ways, having read about the lack of an immunization structure even in first world countries.