Compliance Rate for National Childhood and Adolescent Immunisation Schedule

Dr Chia Shi-Lu asked the Minister for Health with regard to the National Childhood and Adolescent Immunisation Schedule (a) what is the compliance rate for Singaporeans and foreign students, including Permanent Residents; (b) what measures are taken when parents do not comply; and (c) whether there have been any reported adverse effects caused by the immunisations in the last three years.

Vaccinations under the National Childhood Immunisation Schedule (NCIS) are recommended as the standard of care to protect children against certain infectious diseases. Vaccinations against measles and diphtheria are compulsory in Singapore. The take-up rates for measles and diphtheria vaccinations are high among Singaporeans and Permanent Residents, with coverage in children aged two years maintained at around 95% or higher in the last five years. The high vaccination coverage confers herd immunity and reduces the risk of disease outbreaks. As measles and diphtheria vaccinations are bundled together in the form of combination vaccines with vaccinations on NCIS for other diseases, such as mumps, rubella, whooping cough, polio and tetanus, herd immunity is achieved for these diseases as well.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has taken an educational approach to encourage parents to comply with vaccinating their children. The National Immunisation Registry under the Health Promotion Board (HPB) tracks preschool children and sends letters to remind parents to bring their children for vaccination if they have not done so. HPB’s School Health Service actively follows up on unvaccinated children in primary schools. This has worked well and resulted in high levels of vaccination coverage among our children.

The Health Sciences Authority has in place a robust surveillance system to closely monitor the safety of vaccines used here. In the last three years, while there were reports of adverse reactions suspected to be associated with vaccines, the majority of the reports relate to known adverse reactions, such as injection-site swelling or pain, fever and febrile fits.

We will continue to work with HPB to monitor the take-up rate of vaccines under NCIS and, at the same time, enhance educational efforts to ensure that high vaccination coverage is maintained to protect our population.