Court rules on immunisation

By Dave Riley

BRISBANE -- A recent ruling by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is sure to have significant impact on parents of young children nationwide.

In a landmark decision, commissioner William Carter found that it was not unlawfully discriminatory for the Maroochy Shire Council (on the Sunshine Coast) to exclude two children from its child-care facilities because they had not been vaccinated.

This could lead to a generalised tightening of attendance criteria for all institutions where young children congregate -- especially child-care centres and preschools.

At present no more than 29% of Queensland children are fully immunised at school entry, giving the state the second worst immunisation level in the country.

Effective protection from a range of crippling and potentially fatal illnesses is thought to require a level of herd immunity of 92-95% of the population for measles and whooping cough (pertussis), and 80-85% for poliomyelitis and diphtheria.

Sunshine Coast medical association president Fran Johnson told the local Sunshine Coast Sunday: "It is widely accepted by the medical profession that the only practical means of raising herd immunity, thereby blocking the transmission of vaccine-preventable disease, is by a widespread immunisation program".

In the Brisbane North region, research conducted by the Brisbane North and Sunshine Coast Public Health Unit suggested that only 1% of parents were strongly anti-immunisation, and 97% of parents presented their children for their first vaccinations at two months of age.

The difficulty is getting parents to complete the program.

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