Senate Committee approves vaccination project in public schools

The Social Affairs Committee (CAS) of the Federal Senate approved, this Wednesday (29), the bill that intends to establish the National Vaccination Program in Public Schools, PL 826/2019. The proposal came from the Chamber of Deputies, authored by Arthur Lira (PP-AL), received an amendment proposed by senator Dr. Hiran (PP-RR) and is now being analyzed by the Education Commission (CE).

The amendment accepted by the commission requested the removal of the article that required schools to send a list to the region’s health unit with the names of students who were not vaccinated, information on their guardians and addresses.

According to Dr. Hiran, this measure violates parental autonomy, could cause discrimination against unvaccinated students and result in school dropout. Furthermore, it fails to comply with the Child and Adolescent Statute in relation to psychological and moral inviolability since, according to it, the child could receive humiliating treatment.

The same criticisms were pointed out by other senators and, therefore, despite presenting arguments against part of the amendment, rapporteur Humberto Costa (PT-PE) accepted the change. “We disagree with the author when he states that the article highlighted violates parental autonomy, especially because no provision in this PL obliges parents to vaccinate their children, nor does it condition school access to vaccination”, pointed out the senator.

He also mentioned that it would not be reasonable to allege discrimination among unvaccinated students or school dropouts “because the objective of creating a vaccination program in public schools is to guarantee an increase in vaccination coverage”, maintaining the eradication of diseases that seriously affect health and “ ensuring that they remain in school.”

However, Humberto Costa understood the concern of the other senators with the possible exposure of students to “vexatious and embarrassing situations”, and agreed that the text does not make it clear how the personal data of these students would be treated, “which could lead to a violation of the provisions of the General Data Protection Law”.

With this, the rapporteur stated that “the suppression of art. 4th does not diminish the merit of the proposal, nor does it reduce the mechanisms for promoting the health of children and adolescents”, and voted to approve the Project with the proposed amendment.

What does the project say?

The text proposes vaccination carried out in public schools that serve pre-school and elementary school students with the aim of intensifying vaccination actions and expanding vaccination coverage. Furthermore, it establishes that private schools may also participate in the Program by contacting local health units.

Vaccination must occur after the start of the National Influenza Vaccination Campaign and include routine and campaign vaccines, in which non-enrolled students and adults in the community can also be vaccinated, if vaccines are available.

For Humberto Costa, the main focus of the proposal is to increase vaccination coverage of immunizers included in the National Immunization Program (PNI). “Although immunizers have been used safely and effectively in all age groups for decades, the number of people questioning their effectiveness and safety has been increasing for some time, which has had a serious impact on vaccination coverage,” he said. to the Senate Agency.