The state government’s new No Jab, No Play legislation to protect children from vaccine preventable diseases came into effect from 6 August.

Minister for Health and Wellbeing Stephen Wade said children would not be able to enrol in or attend early childhood services unless all immunisation requirements were met.

“While the world deals with the devastating impacts of a virus for which we have no vaccine for it would be irresponsible not to protect our children from the viruses we can vaccinate,” Minister Wade says.

“Immunisation is a simple, safe and highly effective way of protecting children and adults from harmful diseases before they come into contact with them and we strongly believe that SA should have the best childhood immunisation rates in the nation.

“Collecting immunisation records at early childhood services since January means our public health team is able to quickly respond to any vaccine preventable outbreak and exclude children who are more at risk.”

As result of changes made to the South Australian Public Health Act 2011, the Chief Public Health Officer can exclude unimmunised or otherwise susceptible children from care during an outbreak of a vaccine preventable disease.

The Department for Health and Wellbeing’s Communicable Disease Control Branch (CDCB) Director, Dr Louise Flood, said vaccinations were the number one defence against vaccine preventable diseases.

“Young children, particularly babies, are more vulnerable to severe outcomes from some vaccine preventable diseases than older children and adults,” Dr Flood says

“Immunisation not only protects individuals but also vulnerable people in the community who are too young or too unwell to be vaccinated.

“Most vaccines need to be given more than once to build longer lasting protection. It is important for children to complete the full recommended course or schedule of vaccinations at the recommended times.

“The ability to access an individual child’s vaccination record and exclude unvaccinated children during a disease outbreak will help protect not only the individual child, but also the wider community, by minimising the spread of disease.”

No Jab, No Play laws follow earlier changes which came into effect on 1 January 2020, requiring parents and guardians to provide approved immunisation records to early childhood service providers when they enrol a child, and ongoing at specified times throughout the child’s attendance at the service.

An approved immunisation record is a child’s immunisation history statement from the Australian Immunisation Register.

There are some approved exemptions and parents and guardians should speak with their medical practitioner about their child’s particular circumstances.

For more information, visit the SA health website.

Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay