Health professionals are divided as to whether or not covid19 vaccination should be put on the list of required vaccines for children to attend school.

Paediatrician Dr David Bratt explained that vaccination against certain diseases to attend school became law after TT's fourth and last polio outbreak in 1972.

In fact, the Public Health (Nursery Schools And Primary Schools Immunisation) Act became legislation in 1973 and was amended in 1975, 1993, and 1995.

It says, "Notwithstanding any rule of law to the contrary, no person may be admitted into any nursery school or primary school unless he produces to the principal thereof a certificate of immunisation with respect to every communicable disease, save that where a person produces a certificate of a medical practitioner certifying that immunisation against any particular communicable disease or communicable diseases is not advisable on medical grounds, no certificate of immunisation is required to be produced with respect to that communicable disease or those communicable diseases, as the case may be."

It added that any school principal who admits an unvaccinated student was liable to receive a $1,000 fine, and the schedule of vaccination could be amended by the Health Minister 'from time to time.'

The schedule includes poliomyelitis (polio), diphtheria, tetanus, yellow fever, and measles.

Bratt said, 'After 42 years in the business I can tell you vaccinations have helped. When I came back to Trinidad, although we were not seeing polio, we were seeing diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, mumps, meningitis, brain-damaged children German measles, and so on.'

Even so, he does not believe in obligatory vaccination of children against chickenpox or flu as they are usually not serious for children under the age of 12.

He said all vaccines have side effects - some mild and some bad - but diseases also have side effects so parents should speak to their health care providers and decide on a course.

'You always have to weigh up the balance. Is giving the vaccine safer than having the disease? And that's what we have to start doing with the covid too. We have to weigh how dangerous is covid for children as far as death is concerned and how dangerous are the long-term side effects as opposed to how good is the vaccine.'

He acknowledged that the covid19 vaccines have not been around long enough to be able to monitor long-term effects. But, he said the good thing is, vaccine side effects usually occur in the first few months after vaccination and generally do not have long-term side effects.

'The problem is the technology used to create some of these covid19 vaccines is relatively new technology. We think it's going to be safe but we don't know for sure so I understand why some people don't want to give their children the vaccine.'

He noted that the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen/Johnson & Johnson covid19 vaccines are vector vaccines, and Sinopharm and Sinovac are whole vir