A deputy health minister has joined senators in backing a proposal to prevent unvaccinated children from being admitted to public preschools and nurseries in Poland
Three Senate committees are to recommend an amendment to the education law that would require parents to submit medical certification that their child is up to date with the legally required vaccinations or is exempt from the requirement.
The effort comes amid concerns that falling vaccination rates are making Polish children more susceptible to diseases.
The annual number of people refusing compulsory vaccinations has risen more than 13 fold in the last decade, to 40,151 last year (https://t.co/CK6FTdyRXv).
This reflects a growing #antivax movement in Poland. One consequence has been that cases of measles are also rising rapidly pic.twitter.com/pb6B3mghg0
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 15, 2019
Like many countries, Poland has seen a growing “antivax” movement in recent years, driven by claims that vaccinations have dangerous side effects. Whereas in 2010 there were only 3,437 cases of parents refusing to vaccinate their children, by 2019 that had risen to 48,609.
Experts warn that such trends will see Poland fall below the necessary proportion of vaccinated people to provide herd immunity against certain illnesses. The proportion vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella fell from 98% in 2010 to 93% in 2018, reports Onet.
As a result, says Marek Krupiński, director general of UNICEF Polska, there has been an increase in infections. In 2019, Poland recorded over 1,500 cases of measles – more than in the previous 18 years combined.
There have been more cases of measles in Poland so far this year than in the last 18 years combined.
Poland has seen a big rise in parents refusing vaccinations for children and has also been affected by measles cases brought from neighbouring Ukraine, where there is an epidemic https://t.co/rcIb21XS0s
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 9, 2019
During discussions in the Senate, Waldemar Kraska, the deputy health minister, said that the proposed legislation merits support, although he added that it needed to be clarified, reports Onet.
“The bill is good and very important, especially at a time of epidemic and when vaccination coverage is at a very low level,” argued Senator Beata Małecka-Libera, head of the senate’s health committee. “Anti-vaccination movements did not come out of nowhere – they came about because [health] education is lacking in society.”
Local authorities are also in favour of the proposal, according to Senator Zygmunt Frankiewicz, head of the local authorities committee and president of the Association of Polish Cities. “There is a desire for such a regulation,” he said.
Some local authorities already use vaccination as an additional criterion for admissions to preschools. But in 2020 the education ministry decided not to pursue a proposal to implement such a policy more widely, citing concerns that it would restrict the constitutional right to access to education, reports Onet.
Main image credit: Flickr/Ministerstwo Rodziny i Polityka Społecznej (under CC BY-ND 2.0)
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
