Vaccination campaign ends next week

The CNMI Division of Public Health Immunization Program is finishing up its vaccination campaign in clinics, public and private school, and day care centers. The program was set from Jan. 22 to March 1, 2018.

The schools that participated in the program are Mt. Carmel School; Marianas, Kagman, and Saipan Southern high schools; Francisco M. Sablan, Tanapag, Dandan, Hopwood, and Chacha middle schools; and William S. Reyes, Koblerville, Gregorio T. Camacho, Garapan, San Vicente, and Oleai elementary schools.

According to Immunization Program manager Jeremy Sasamoto of the Communicable Disease Bureau of the Division of Public Health, they brought the campaign to schools to make it easier for parents to get their children vaccinated.

“Immunization is required for school attendance and we go to schools to help parents who have difficulties coming to one of our clinics. We typically start our school vaccination campaign by meeting with the Education commissioner and all the principals of our public and private schools,” he said.

“Working with our school partners, we come up with a schedule for our visits and we provide a letter to parents indicating that their child is not up-to-date with required immunizations. The letters, which contain a consent form, are distributed at school and all signed consent forms are collected prior to our visit to the school,” he added. 

With over 1,000 children still in need of vaccination, a second round of vaccination took place.

“We began our school vaccination campaign for the 2017-2018 school year in October and we concluded in December.  However, due to the significant number of children who were still not up-to-date with required immunizations, I decided to conduct a second round of on-campus vaccinations to give a second opportunity for parents to get their children vaccinated in school,” he said.

“We’ve never done a second round of on-campus vaccinations before and we’re working closely with our partners in health at the Public School System and our private schools to make this second round successful,” he added.

Sasamoto said the vaccination program is based on Public Law 6-10, which requires all children be up-to-date with required immunizations prior to enrollment in any school or daycare/childcare facility in the CNMI. 

“The law also states that a valid health certificate must be presented upon enrollment and registration at any school or daycare as this provides evidence that the child is up-to-date with required immunizations and free from communicable diseases. These health certificates must also be maintained on site at the school or daycare where the child is enrolled, ready for inspection,” he said.

“All students who are delinquent or not up-to-date with required immunizations will be given a notice and remedial action must be taken within two weeks of receiving our notice. Failure to do so risks having the child suspended from school until all immunization requirements are met,” he added.

Sasamoto said that suspending children without health certificates from school is the absolute last thing that the division would want to do.

“We don’t want to resort to suspension and keep the child away from school but it’s the law and we are tasked to enforce these public health laws.  I want to say that these laws are not a barrier to getting an education, they are intended to protect our community, especially our children, from communicable diseases,” he said.

He said the job of the Immunization Program is to prevent the introduction and spread of vaccine preventable communicable diseases in the Commonwealth. 

“We constantly work…to ensure our community is protected from terrible diseases, some of which are currently causing outbreaks on islands and territories close to the CNMI,” he said.