The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH officials are alarmed by declining vaccination among children and fear the country is at risk of reintroducing polio and other deadly diseases.

“The Caribbean and The Bahamas used to be second to none in terms of vaccinations in the world,” said Dr Eldonna Boission, a representative of the Pan American Health Organisation and World Health Organisation Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands.

“I used to be happy to boast about that, but even before COVID, vaccination numbers started to go down, and we are now at a level that puts us at risk of having the reintroduction of some diseases that we have not seen for a very long time and potential spread, and this could be a real big problem.”

After PAHO and the WHO hosted an event Friday to promote vaccines, Dr Boission told reporters childhood immunisation has been far below the 95 per cent goal.

“I’m saying that The Bahamas is at risk of reintroduction of polio and other diseases right now because the vaccination rates have gone way down below 95 per cent, and until we get them back up to 95 per cent, we are at risk,” she said.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time. We are all vaccine babies. All of us here have been vaccinated. We had our childhood vaccinations.

“I’m far from being a baby, I’m still here healthy, and I don’t have any of those diseases that the vaccines prevented me from getting, so they are very safe, and you really need to get your kids vaccinated. You do not want them to get polio, which there is no cure for, or measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, or pertussis. These are all serious diseases that can make your kids severely ill or even kill them. Do not be afraid.”

Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Philip Swan said the COVID-19 pandemic affected vaccine uptake in two ways: access to vaccines was reduced during lockdowns, and hesitancy spread among people amid debate about taking the COVID-19 vaccine.

“The risk is real,” he said. “As mentioned earlier, we have source markets where our tourists come from. In some of those areas, there have been pockets of these once-forgotten childhood vaccine-preventable illnesses like polio, like measles.

“If our children are not vaccinated, the chances are, if one of the adults who works in those communities interacts with someone with the disease, they could transfer the virus home to their household. If we have pockets of individuals not vaccinated, there’s nothing to protect that group, and the disease then flies like wildfire. We could see school closures happen again if we do have outbreaks like polio and measles.”

Dr Swan could not say what the current vaccination rate is among children, saying health officials are trying to determine this.

According to the WHO, the pandemic saw immunisation levels decrease in over 100 countries, leading to rising outbreaks of measles and polio, among other diseases.