Health Ministry refutes claims of school vaccination side effects

AMMAN — The Ministry of Health refuted claims that the national vaccination campaign targeting schoolchildren will introduce new vaccines and called on parents to cooperate with the ministry and adhere to the national vaccination programme.

The Ministry of Education intends to commence the second phase of the national vaccination programme, scheduled to start in mid-October, which will focus on vaccinating all students in both public and private schools, kindergartens, nurseries and shelters, according to officials.

According to an official statement issued by the Education Ministry, the campaign aims to target more than one million people in the second phase, covering all age groups.

The programme also will cover individuals who have not been vaccinated or have missed their vaccinations from the age of two months up to 18 years old, in addition to providing an additional dose of the measles and German measles vaccines.

Unverified information has been circulating on social media, claiming that the ministry will combine the COVID-19 vaccine with the measles vaccine and administer it to schoolchildren.

Furthermore, some posts on social media claim that combining these vaccines will lead to serious health conditions.

A father of a third-grade child who attends school in Ain Al Basha, Amman, told The Jordan Times that all the parents at the school have agreed not to send their children to school on the vaccination day because “they fear the vaccine will have terrible side effects on children”.

Ayman Maqableh, vaccination director at the Ministry of Health, refuted these claims and urged parents to adhere to the ministry’s vaccination programme.

“There’s no such thing as combining two vaccines together,” Maqableh told The Jordan Times.

Maqableh emphasised the importance of vaccinating children who missed their vaccines, particularly those who missed their vaccinations during the COVID-19 pandemic.