With the introduction of No Jab No Play laws for enrolling in early childhood services in effect in NSW with other states and territories likely to follow and the government's announcement to cut support payments such as the CCB, the child care rebate and family tax, for families who choose not to vaccinate it's clear that the push to increase immunisation rates is a social priority.
Interestingly, however, people working in the early childhood sector are still exempt from mandatory immunisations, despite the fact they are at increased risk of catching and passing on communicable diseases just by virtue of their regular close proximity to children.
Immunisation for early childhood workers is recommended by many government resources because:
- Young children and babies are more prone to illness as their immunity develops.
- Children are often less likely to practise good hygiene (for example washing their hands, covering their mouth when they cough and using tissues) and more likely to expose you to their bodily fluids!
- Some infectious diseases can be very serious. For example, whooping cough (also called pertussis) can be deadly for young babies, but will often only be a mild illness in adults.
- Many infectious diseases, such as measles, are highly infectious several days before any symptoms appear.
- Staying up-to-date with immunisations is the most effective way you can protect yourself and the children and babies you work with from vaccine-preventable diseases.
The immunisations most commonly recommended for early childhood workers include whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine, measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, chickenpox (varicella) vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine and Seasonal influenza vaccine.
Given that immunisation is not compulsory for people working in the early childhood sector, yet seems to be a very sensible idea we are interested in learning what individual services think and do about keeping staff and children safe and disease free and whether services maintain immunisation policies designed to encourage staff to stay up-to-date with their seasonal immunisations.
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