No outbreaks for years, says ministry

AS AN ANTI-VACCINE movement gains converts in some countries, a Ministry of Health official has pointed out that there have been no outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases in Barbados for many years. 

The movement has questioned the safety of mandated childhood vaccine programmes, claiming that they could lead to convulsions, paralysis, epilepsy, autism, mental retardation, depression, anxiety and learning disorders in children.

In Barbados, a 23-year-old mother is claiming that her four-month-old baby developed cerebral palsy after being given the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DPT) injection, but Dr Karen Broome, who manages the ministry’s expanded programme of immunisation, denied that the combination vaccine causes cerebral palsy.

“There has never been such a case in Barbados,” she said. “There is currently no association between vaccine and cerebral palsy.”

Please read the full story in today’s Sunday Sun, or in the eNATION edition.