BENGALURU: The mandatory measles-rubella (MR) vaccination drive planned by the Department of Health and Family Welfare at schools for children aged between 5 and 15 has met with strong opposition from parents.
Saurabh Karla, a parent, has started a petition on change.org called - ‘Forced re-immunisation of kids in Karnataka schools’ - petitioning the state and Union governments against the drive. Many parents have supported the petition. The MR vaccination drive aims to cover 1.64 crore children aged between 9 months and 15 years.
In the petition, Karla raised questions about the necessity of re-vaccination and also expresses suspicion over this. The petition reads: “I am not sure how many of you are aware of this, but this mass mandatory vaccination drive for children between age group of 5 to 15 in schools is making me uneasy. The only thing they appear to want to achieve is a target and there’s no stats on weather re-vaccination with MR vaccine will help? I personally find this move very suspicious and being done in a haste! “ (sic)
One parent, who supported the petition said that most of the parents have got the MR vaccination done for their children on doctors’ instructions and wanted to know the need for re-vaccinating them.
As per the schedule decided by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, the vaccination drive will be held between February 7 to 28.