In August this year, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science gave a joint press conference on the preparation of an order prohibiting unvaccinated children from attending schools and kindergartens. On the eve of the start of the school year, the Department of Health of Kyiv City Council (Kyiv City State Administration) announced the preparation of an request to the Ministry of Health for further clarification on the regulation of the prevention of unvaccinated children in organized groups.
Director of the Department of Health Valentina Ginzburg said that despite the implementation of systematic additional measures for measles immunization in children since 2017, remains a cohort of children who did not receive routine vaccinations in previous years (these are children under 5 years old and from 7 to 14 years old) , the vast majority of whom attend school and preschool institutions.
According to the department, the main outbreaks of infectious diseases in the capital are observed after the holidays, when schoolchildren, students, and adults return to the city from vacations. Valentina Ginzburg called parents of children and students with a strong recommendation for vaccinations. At the vaccination level in 95-98% of the population, collective immunity is formed, which protects even those who are contraindicated inoculations.
The initiative of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Science has legislative justification – Article 15 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of the Population from Infectious Diseases” stipulates that children who have not been vaccinated according to the National Calendar are not allowed to attend educational institutions. This ban was also confirmed by a decision of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.
To ensure a balance between the right of the child to receive pre-school and school education and the rights of other children to protection from infectious diseases, the Ministry of Education and Science proposes to consider each case of contraindications separately, and if the parents do not want to be vaccinated with the child without any contraindications, alternative education formats are available to them, for example, distance learning.
