By Anonymous
Copyright caymannewsservice
(CNS): The Cayman Islands’ chief medical officer has warned that the rollback of school vaccine mandates in Florida, particularly those against what were once common but dangerous childhood diseases such as measles and whooping cough, will have consequences here. Dr Nick Gent said that because of the historic success of vaccination programmes, most people in Cayman haven’t seen children infected with such diseases and probably don’t understand just how ill they can become. But it may start to happen “because of the problems emerging to the north of us”.
When he appeared on Forefront, Compass TV’s talk show, last week, Dr Gent said he was worried about what is happening in the United States, where, because of changes in vaccine policies, people are losing free access to what were once widespread programmes that have kept certain diseases in check for many years. Once they are no longer free, more and more people will not be vaccinated.
“If people start to pay for those vaccines, immunisation rates will fall,” Gent said. Then it is only a matter of time before these worrying viruses board a plane and end up here, Gent noted as he stressed how severe measles and whooping cough can be.
Gent pointed out that there are no medicines that have a better understood safety profile than vaccines. But the latest backlash, which Gent said was nothing new, will nevertheless lead to these diseases getting into our community. He said parents asking questions about any medication for their children is sensible, but he said his concern is the barriers that are emerging to get access to free vaccines and what that means.
There is no mandatory requirements in the Cayman Islands for children entering school, but the free accessible public health vaccine programmes have been very successful and have led to a high uptake among parents.
However, Dr Gent appeared to be genuinely concerned that, given its proximity to Cayman, a decline in access in Florida could have serious repercussions, and he warned that parents need to be prepared for possible outbreaks.
As a result, he stressed the need for parents and guardians to ensure their kids are all up to date with the vaccines that are freely available as a means of protection in the face of this elevated public health risk.
