Schools will be ready for vax extension

Waatea Team Schools will be ready for vax extension

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A Māori education consultant says schools have well oiled systems to prepare pupils for vaccinations.

Medsafe has provisionally approved the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine jab for those aged 12 to 15.

Cabinet will consider this month whether to extend the vaccination programme below 16-year-olds, but even if the decision is made, jabs won’t start going into teen arms until later in the year.

Whetu Cormick, a former president of the Principals Federation, says more than 90 percent of children already receive the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine at school, and numbers are also high for the HPV vaccine.

“Nobody’s forced into these vaccinations. Parents have to give approval. There’s documentation that went home and parents have to sign off on those documents so children receive those (vaccinations) at school and they happen in year 7 and year 8,” he says.

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