SA urged to beef up childcare vaccination

Federal Labor MP Kate Ellis says the South Australian government should let childcare centres turn away unvaccinated children.

South Australian childcare centres should be allowed to turn away unvaccinated children, federal Labor MP Kate Ellis says.

Childcare centres should also be made to disclose vaccination rates to parents, the early childhood spokeswoman says.

"The current arrangements mean parents are flying blind when trying to make sure their children are in safe environments," Ms Ellis said in a letter to SA Child Development Minister Susan Close earlier this month.

Dr Close said she was open to making enrolments contingent on vaccinations but didn't want to exclude already marginalised children.

But she didn't support forcing childcare centres to tell parents about unvaccinated children because those who were immunised were already protected.

"We are considering a number of measures that can be enacted at a state level to encourage the take-up of vaccinations and maintain the vital level of immunity which keeps us all safer," she said on Thursday.

Ms Ellis said one-in-10 SA children weren't vaccinated and in some areas that ratio fell to one-in-five.

"South Australian parents don't want to see serious preventable disease - like the recent measles outbreak in Melbourne - occur here and they certainly don't want their own children exposed to such risk through no fault of their own."


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Published 12 May 2016 10:22am
Source: AAP


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